Signposting

When I have helping sessions with helpee, I noticed that some of the issues that they’re facing are quite practical. Some helpee mentioned that they’re having difficult financial situation for the last few years due to increasing cost of living. As a helper, I think active listening is a good way to show that I pay attention to listen and understand what helpee are facing. On the other hand, I think that it’s important for helper to recognize the meaning of signposting helpee to other supportive network if that may help them to deal with the issue. Take the above money issue as an example, I think helper can help to find out the reason why helpee feel worry about the future and the helpee’s feeling due to money concern. But to solve the issue permanently, it’s required to study the spending pattern of helpee and review the existing debt, which requires input from parties have related knowledge. I know that there are various charities such as StepChange Debt Charity and National Debtline that are specialized to provide debt advice and help people to deal with debts. If I have chance to talk to helpee that have money issue in the future, I think I will help them to deal with the emptions first, then I’ll suggest them to seek additional support from these charities, so that someone can assist them to look into their situation and see how to sort the financial issue in the longer term.

In this paragraph, I’d like to share how my personality affect the helping work. I was grown up in a Christian family and awareness about emotions were not emphasized. I experienced the power active listening when I was sixteen years old. I had some love problems at that time and I wished someone to understand my feeling. At that time, my church mentor demonstrated how to be a good helper and the transforming power of using listening skills properly. The mentor spent almost a year with me and she helped me to deal with my emotions and my struggles. After that, I wished to be a good helper and help the others that were having struggles in their life. And I tried to repeat what I’ve experienced when I tried to be a helper. First of all, I tried to provide as much space as I can when I talk to a helpee, so that they can share safely. The reason is because I understand the importance of creating a safe place for helpee to share their feeling and thoughs, which is hard to find in big city. When helpee felt they’re safe to share, they always shared a lot of their feelings with me. The second thing that I learned from the mentor is the significance of self-care. When I tried to be a helper, I had many chances to talk to different helpee and I became exhausted after a year. The reason is because I listened too much negative things but I didn’t aware that. My mentor reminded me it’s crucial to take care my own mental health, otherwise it’s easy for me to burnout. Because of her word, I tried to spend more effort to take care of my own mental health and understand my underneath emotions. When I looked back, I found that I greatly affected by this mentor and what she showed me affect my action when I help the others as a helper. I wish to keep those suggestions in my mind and use them to help more people. 

Challenges of staying focused on helpees’ needs

The challenges of staying focused on helpees’ needs and issues is the desire of helper himself/herself. If helper is not able to put aside his/her own emotions, then helper may not able to stay focus on helpees’ needs but to run the session using helper’s own agenda. I talked to a helper last week to share my worry about my mum’s critical illness. At the beginning of the session, helper asked me some questions to understand what’s happened and what’s my feelings. After I shared a bit background information, helper started to move to another stage, trying to ask what’s my plan in the next few months. During that part, I can feel that helper dominated the session and was trying to guide me to the direction that she prefer. I feel stressed and found that it’s difficult to share further. In addition, I don’t have enough time and space to share my emotions underneath. At the end of the session, the helper admitted that her action was driven by the emotions of what’s happened to her mother, thus she can’t resist to direct me. I think the above experience is a good reminder to me. It’s common that helper always have own personal experience and those issues may heavily disturb their emotion. It’s impossible for helper to give up those feeling, but what helper can do is to maintain the professional helping role during the session and deal with those emotions triggered after the session. Moreover, I think it’s critical to work in partnership with helpee. Given that helpee have their own autonomy, helper should bare in mind not to manipulate neither helpee nor the helping session. 

In the next paragraph, I’d like to further discuss the above experience and talk about how I’d maintain boundaries if I am the helper during the helping session. When helpee talk about illness of his mother, it’s understandable that the emotion of helper maybe triggered and I may think of my own parents. The first thing I’d do is to focus on understanding the emotions of the helpee and trying to understand what’s helpee’s thoughts about the incident. Since helpee is the focus on the helping session, I’ve to put aside my emotions and deal with them afterwards but not to let it affect the helping session. On the other hand, it’s a temptation for helper to provide advice to helpee to respond to helpee’s situation, such as how to cure the disease, etc. However, this attempt is violating helpee’s autonomy and prohibit helper to provide unbiased support. To maintain a proper boundary, I will use various listening skills and keep unconditional positive regard, so that helpee can feel the effort I put to understand his situation. Moreover, I have to keep working under the BACP framework and consider helpee’s needs as my primary concern, so that I can fully respect helpee as a independent individual and thus work in a professional capacity. Helpee may wish to further elaborate his feeling or he may wish to talk about his worry about what to do in the future. What I should do is to assist helpee to focus on the topic that he wished to deal with during the helping session and guide him to express what’s in his mind. I believe this is the best way to respect his own autonomy and keep proper boundaries between helper and helpee. 

Boundaries of helping session & meaning of stay focused

During the last triad, the helpee was late and he requested to extend the session because of his lateness. I’d like to take chance to rethink the importance of maintaining proper boundaries in terms of time and share my reflection about the relevance of boundaries in the helping role.Time is equal to everyone and nobody have extra time, no matter who they are. As a result, it’s important for helper to utilise the time of each session and make sure the next helpee can attend the helping session at the agreed time slot. It’s understandable that the late helpee wish to have extra time, so that he can have sufficient time to talk about his case. However, what he asked for break the boundaries between helper and helpee and it might damage the therapeutic relationship that was established properly. Boundaries not only about keeping objectivity or preventing ethical dilemmas, but it’s a wider concept about how to set the framework that define how the helper and helpee should interact. Undoubtedly time is one of the key elements of boundaries, thus it’s critical for me to reject that request. However, what I can offer to the helpee is to schedule another session. I believe that should be a better solution. Firstly, we can have longer time to talk about his experience and his thought about time. Secondly, arrange another time slot can make sure the upcoming helping session can start on time and thus is fair to the next helpee that attend on time. 


In the next paragraph, I’d like to share my reflection about stay focused on helpee’s needs and issues. In most of the time, I noticed that the issue that helpee mentioned at the beginning is only tip of the iceberg. One of the possibilities is that helpee did not realise the real concern, and helper act as an essential role to assist helpee to locate the core issue by using proper skills such as asking open questions or other active listening skills and stay focus on that particular area. Take the last triad as an example, at the beginning helpee mentioned his difficulty about arriving on time and can’t understand the reaction of other colleague. It seems what annoyed helpee is the different understanding about time. However, I noticed helpee mentioned this feeling is mainly from his workplace, so I asked some open questions and tried to clarify whether helpee’s major concern is about on time or his performance at work. Helpee then mentioned what he encountered at work and his frustration about unfair appraisal by colleague. Due to time limit, I have to stop the conversation at this point. But the above scenario clearly illustrate that the importance of paying attention to listen what helpeesaid and staying focus on the real problem. Otherwise helper maybe distracted and put the focus on minor area but not helpee’s primary concern. It’s uneasy to locate the primary area. Apart from developing the sensitivity by having more practise, I think the best way is keep asking questions to clarify what helpee think and fine tune the direction of further conversation based on what helpee mention. 

Boundaries of helping session & meaning of summarising

During the triad, helpee suggested to have a drink after the helping session because he is lonely and he need someone to be accompanied. I think this is a good opportunity to discuss the boundaries needed during the helping sessions and the reason behind. As a helper, I have to follow the BACP framework and it mentioned the importance to build an appropriate relationship with clients. One of the key things is to make sure the relationship between helper and helpee is kept within the helping session but not extended to personal relationship.Being a helper means that I should put helpee first and should prevent any biases & conflicts of interest. If I agreed to go for a drink with the helpee, then I will put myself into unnecessary ethical dilemmas. Since having a drink outside is not part of the helping session, that will make the relationship become unclear. Helpee may treat me as friends going forward and thus prefer not to continue the helping session under the original boundaries. And then I will not able to act in a professional capacity in future helping sessions anymore. To prevent that happen, the best way is to refuse the invitation in a proper manner. It’s not easy to refuse the invitation from another person, but I’m sure that’s necessary act to protect both side.Moreover, I think that’d be a good idea to spend some time to explain the reason why I have to keep the boundaries carefully, so that helpee understand the responsibility of helper and the importance to establish boundaries properly. 


In this paragraph, I’d like to talk about the meaning of summarising at the end of a helping session. It’s quite common that helpee talked a lot about his/her life through the whole session and thus we cannot cover all of them within one helping session. To show that I have paid attention to listen to what the helpee said, I always summarise what we’ve discussed. I think summarising is a good way to assist helpee to recap what was discussed during the whole session and listed out main points concisely. Through this action, helpee know that I listened what he/she mentioned during the whole session. And in case I missed any points or facts, that’s a good time for helpee to clarify, so that those points won’t be ignored in the future. Moreover, the points summarised is a good starting point of the next session. As mentioned before, It’s not always possible to talk about all the points within limited time. And it’s good to continue the conversation starting from points that are not discussed last time, so that I can discuss them with helpee further and have deeper understanding about the full picture. Another advantage about summarising is to bring a session to a close smoothly, so that the helping session will not overrun. Time constraint is one of the boundaries that helper should maintain, and I think doing the summary a few minutes earlier is a good way to end the session, so that both helper and helpee will not jump into another conversation of other area. Since there are so many advantages and most of the classmates mentioned at the peer observation that my way of doing summarising is beneficial to the helping session, I always do the summarising during all triad. 

Challenge personal issues, fears and prejudices

When talking about prejudices, I noticed how the culture shaped my understanding about the LGBTQ community. And I believe that might be one of my obstacles when I have a chance to work with helpee from this background. I was grown up in a society that mixed with Chinese & Western culture. But in areas related to marriage and sexual orientation, most of the people are heavily affected by Chinese culture. I think that’s because my hometown is a monoethnicity society and most of elder family member shared the same culture, thus it’s quite difficult for people to build another point of view about this topic. Generally speaking, Chinese culture encourage heterosexuality and people that prefer homosexuality are always belongs to minority.  Since the culture is not very friendly to homosexuality and homosexual are always stigmatize by the society, I can only hear comments about homosexuality from the mainstream social values and I rarely met people that are willing to admit they are homosexual. Because of the above culture influence, I’m not sure if I can ignore the prejudices completely if the helpee wish to talk about issue about their sexual orientation. I’m not saying I cannot demonstrate good listening skills or non-verbal communication, but I think the prejudice may affect how I assist helpee to achieve desired outcome based on his/her preferred way. In my point of view, it’s uneasy to change my underneath prejudice, but it’s good that I’m aware of this when I do this self-reflection, so that it won’t become unconscious bias. 

After talking about the prejudices that I obtain from the culture, I’d like to further discuss how it will affect me when having helping sessions. During last week’s triad, we are required to deal with a case regarding a gay helpee that faced family pressure, friends’ rejection and perllexed about the relationship with a charming male. When that’s my turn to act as a helper, I fully respect his freedom of choice about focusing on which aspects, and I worked with helpee to talk about rejection from his friend, which is his preference,  throughout the whole session. Although both helpee and observer mentioned that I handle the case very professionally, I noticed that I intended not to mention the sexual orientation topic unless helpee actively propose he wish to discuss about that area. When I rethink this, I think I’m afraid that I cannot remain neutral, thus I prefer to stand back from this area. It seems like I prevent myself to bring my own agenda to the helping session, which is a good thing. But in some sense, I might pass over the potential advantage of talking about why helpee think a male is his potential target. Considering the scenario did not provide too many information about this, that might be area worth further discussion. After this triad, I have more awareness about how my preference about sexual orientation may hinder myself to work with helpee that wish to talk about this. What I need to work on will be how to work on this area with helpee neutrality but still maintain my own preference about this topic. 

Work within personal limits of ability

We did a triad last week, trying to be a helper to help an asylum seeker that is under difficult situation. In that scenario, the helpee mentioned that he is going to end his life because he faced financial difficulty, uncertainty about his entitlement to stay in UK and lost of his partner. During that triad, both the classmates and myself noticed that my performance is quite different from my previous triad. In my point of view, that’s a rare case because I’ve never faced similar experience before. When I look back, I think the case provoked my memory of leaving my hometown and move to UK.  I noticed that the situation of the helpee triggered some of my emotions, thus I cannot apply skills learned. Instead, I shared and trapped under the same hopelessness and cannot provide appropriate assistance to the helpee.  I think that’s a really important discovery because I didn’t realized that the act of leaving my hometown still affect my emotion underneath. I thought I’ve already spent sufficient effort to deal with those emotions, but didn’t noticed that I still have a fear that I may not able to obtain settled status in UK. In a logical way of thinking, that case is very unlikely to happen, but it seems that’s a fear that I’m not aware during the last two years. I’m delighted to have this finding, so that I know that I have limits when working with helpees that are asylum seekers or still struggled to stay in UK legally, and it’d better to pass these cases to other helpers to handle, and I can then work on other cases. I’m not sure if this limit can be improved, I will review again once I obtain settled status a few years later. 

Apart from the self-discovery, last week’s triad was a great chance for me to re-think the importance of providing suitable referral to helpee in case he/she need wider support that other than the helper can provide. Although I’ve had some counselling training and can provide some emotional support, that doesn’t mean that I am the only source to offer all kinds of help. Take the scenario that mentioned in the above paragraph as example, the helpee faced issues related to financial situation, asylum application and potential conflicts between helpee and his partner. Since it’s a complicated situation and involved multiple factors, it’s beyond my ability to help solely. Given that the civil society in UK is very mature and the many support from the government is available, I think I need to understand my limit and learn how I can seek support from various sources if helpee’s case is complicated. For example, if the helpee need emergency good, food bank and local church probably can offer some help immediately. Moreover, if helpee need additional advise about how to appeal against the asylum decision, charity that can offer profession legal advise might be able to provide some help to the helpee. From this triad, I learned the importance to identify what kind of support is available in UK. Besides gaining more knowledge about counselling and psychology theories, I think one of the things that I need to work on in the future is to check how to do referral properly, so that it fulfils the ethical standard that helper should follow. Moreover, it’s also essential for me to learn how to propose referral in a wise way, so that the act will not bring negative feeling to helpee. 

My personal history and relationship patterns

After talking skills learnt to demonstrate empathy, I’d like to talk about my reflection about my personal history and how I relate to others in the next two paragraphs. When I look back my childhood, I’m feeling blessed. I was grown up in an environment that I can express my feeling and I always can seek emotional companionship from various sources, such as family, church, and friends. As a result, I learned the importance of emotion and how I should express when dealing with difficult situations. On the other hand, the environment that I grow up also encourage the culture of preventing conflicts. People around me treated conflicts as something bad and they often disregard it but not solve it. When I reflect on this part, I realised that why I always prefer to prevent conflict but to face it properly. And I think that’s something I need to work on in my interpersonal relationship. From a helper perspective, I think I need to review the relationship between the helpee and myself regularly. In case we have different opinion about how to keep on the helping session, I have to bare in mind that I will actively deal with the conflict but not try to escape from it.

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I was inspired by a slide about how our relationship patterns dictate several basic things when tutor mentioned this concept. The two elements of who we pick and how we interact with are not something new and I knew that since I was a teenager. The most inspiring part is about how I allow other individuals to treat me in terms of speech and conduct while in the relationship. I think that’s something that I should review further. Since I was a kid, I was taught to be a nice person to everybody, and that’s the best way to treat the others and build up relationships. However, some issues happened because of this mindset. I met more and more people when I grown up, and I noticed some people took advantage of my kindness to accomplish their goal, for example, lower commitment in group assignment but get the same grade as me. I was not happy about that but I did not tell my friend because I thought I should be kind to all my friends. When I look back, I found that I deal with that relationship incorrectly. It's great to treat people nicely, but that doesn’t mean that I should accept unfair treatment unconditionally. Since I am the only person to decide how my friends treat me, I should let them know my real feeling if I don’t agree with their act. Now I know the importance of this element and I think I will treat relationships better when somebody try to take advantage in the future.


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In the next paragraph, I’d like to do some retrospect and prospect. In retrospect, my long termgoals that I made at the beginning of the course is to understand my strength and limitations, so that I can make better career planning for my future. When I apply this course, I treat this as a test because I’m not sure if it’s a good idea or not to consider counsellor as my future goal. When I review feedback from my classmates, I noticed many positive feedback regarding the skills that I applied during the triad, such as proper paraphrasing and active listening. I’m delighted to have these feedback because it’s a recognition to my abilities and skills, proving I can be a good helper. And it’s worthy to learn these skills because they are useful in workplace, family and other places. Moreover, it’s also great motivation for me to continue the journey of studying in counselling. Now I’m more interested to this field and I wish to learn more theories and skills. In prospect, I think I will spend some time on learning terms and adjectives about emotions. I noticed that the vocabulary in my mind is very limited, and I wish to make some improvement in this area. I think that would be helpful when I talk to helpee and I can then use those terms to describe their emotion or what they’re facing more precisely.

In relation to others

During the previous journal, I mentioned a bit about my motivations to study the course. In this paragraph, I’d like to talk about the difference that myself and other person and what does that mean to me. During the lessons, a lot of time was given to every classmates to share their recent status and personal experience that related to counselling topic. I noticed that I’m always the last person to share during the first few weeks. I noticed that I am quite reserved and inhibited at unfamiliar environment and it takes time for me to feel comfortable to share after I get used to other people. Because of my personalities, I noticed that I rarely talk to other classmates actively at the first few weeks, until I heard more about every person and felt safe. This is a re-discovery about my personalities, especially when I am now living at a new country that different from my hometown. Although I’m reserved, that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to social. I’m not too worry that my personalities will affect how I help the others during the helping session, but that’s something that I need to acknowledge and be aware of during daily life. By identifying this, I have more understanding about myself and thus accept people have different response to the same event because of their personal difference.

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During the triad work, I’ve many opportunities to apply skills learnt from the lesson. I’d like to share some of my reflections about non-verbal communication and how I use them to demonstrate empathy. Although verbal communication is the essential element of helping session, the importance of the non-verbal skills cannot be neglected. The interesting point of non-verbal action is that communication is happening between helper and helpee, and both side shares emotions of the other party without saying anything. In my experience, I noticed that helpee tends to observe how I react at the beginning of the helping session, if helpee can feel my good will, they would have greater intention to share more and deeper with me, vice versa. When helpee mentioned some sad experience, I always use eye contact and other facial expression to let helpee know my emotion about his/her experience and I’m willing to listen further. I found that a proper facial expressions is worth a thousand words. I can see that helpee felt that they are empathically understood when I display proper facial expressions and eye contact. Another good thing about using non-verbal communication properly is that it minimised the possibility of myself as a helper to give too many advice. The key of a successful session is not about giving advice, but showing empathy and understanding to the helpee. When I put more effort on listening and non-verbal communication, that helps me not to talking too much and allowing helpee have sufficient time to share their feeling. Since I had some good feedback from my schoolmates, I think I will put more effort to do that better in future triads.