Many people believe that the purpose of seeing a counselor is to get some advice and that the counselor will somehow magically provide all the answers to their problems. You may be familiar with the character Gandalf in the series, “The Lord of the Rings.” Gandalf is a wise, grey bearded father figure who provides young Frodo with critical advice when he needs it most. That is how many people see the role of a counselor; someone who can guide us along the dark and dangerous road and tell us how to find our way to Mordor.
Although you may find this surprising, it is actually much more important for the person seeking help to do a lot of the talking. The first and most important job of any good counselor is to listen and pay careful attention. This process, known as “active listening,” can actually be extremely helpful on its own before any advice is offered or received.
The fact is that telling our story to someone who genuinely cares, expressing why we are unhappy or worried, is a very, very important and powerful part of helping ourselves to begin feeling better.
As you probably know, sharing our concerns, sometimes referred to as “getting things off our chest” doesn’t work nearly as well when we are talking to the wrong person. When the person we are disclosing our story to is not really paying attention, is distracted or preoccupied, or is quite simply not a good listener, the result is that we don’t really feel any better. Sometimes we may even feel worse, especially if we trusted someone who didn’t really take the problem seriously.
Counselling is different from normal, everyday conversation in several ways. For example, in normal conversation, sharing a problem with a friend will often result in something called “reciprocal disclosure.”
Essentially, after hearing briefly about our problem, the friend will relate a similar difficulty they have faced in their own lives. Typically, this will begin with “I know just how you feel. One time I was with my friend Elizabeth and…” The friend is trying to make us feel better. Sometimes it works! However, not all problems can be solved simply by knowing that other people have faced similar challenges. Often, it takes a great deal more work to get at the root of the problem and understand it thoroughly.