I think I am quite comfortable to provide feedback to helpee. It’s because I believe providing feedback is a good way to show that I’m really listening to the helpee during the section and I can then share honest comment to help people grow. In general, I prefer not to give harsh feedback. The rationale behind is that I think people wish to listen to people’s feedback regarding their own situation, but actually they don’t wish to listen comment that make them feel bad. To balance the need of providing honest feedback and helpee’s humanity, what I always do is to start with praise and follow with constructive comment. For example, someone told me he is exhausted because of busy life. After talking for a while, I realized that’s because of his intension of over-promise and attachment to friends. Then I told him I can feel that he loves his friends a lot, thus he is willing to spend a lof of time with his friends. However, I noticed his action make himself very tired. Thus I suggested him not only care about needs of his friends, but is also important to take care to his own physical and mental health. I found that this is a good way to deliver the feedback and helpee is happy to listen my feedback when I use such indirect approach. Although the above way is useful in most of the time, sometimes I still feel difficult to provide feedback when I heard difficult stories, such as emotions due to bereavement. It’s always a challenge to balance the need of caring helpee’s emotion and providing appropriate feedback during the section. In such difficult moments, I tend to not talking too much to prevent saying something harmful. I believe silence is golden in some scenario.
Regarding conditions of Worth, I noticed that the experience that happened in my childhood shaped my personal value and behaviour. When I was a kid, I was inspired by a prayer that called ‘The Prayer of St. Francis’. One of the key sentences of that prayer mentioned ‘grant that I may not so seek to be consoled, as to console’. And I found that I internalized this value. I always think that it is critical to put other’s needs beyond my own needs, and I think this is the best way to show my love and respect to others. And I think this is the way that I think I am valuable to the others. For example, when my friends and I hang out together, I always act as a listener, and I prefer to not to talk too much about my emotions and recent struggles. Instead, I always care about my friends needs. I’m not saying the value from my belief is a bad thing. But when I become an adult, I noticed that the message I take on board from kid stage causing me put insufficient attention to my own needs and feelings, but always focus on the others first. As a result, I spent a few years to learn how to express my feelings to my family and friends properly in right timing. On one hand, I still wish to show my caring to people that I care. And on the other hand, I don’t want to neglect my feelings. After spending quite a lot of effort, I think I can now treat my own feelings properly and can continue to use my ability to help my friends via talking therapy.
Listening and responding skills are very important to the helping interaction because that’s the way that helper shows their understanding about helpee’s experience and assist helpee to see themselves more plainly. A few weeks ago I had an hour to share my recent experience with my life coach, and I shared my struggle about the future plan for the next two to three years. During the conversation, I shared my concern about where to settle in long run, career pursuit, and so on. During the first half of the section, my coach applied restating skill and reflecting skill frequently to make sure he understood what I said. On the other hand, he tried to repeat words that I mention repeatedly during the conversation, such as uncertainty and financial stability. His action helped me a lot because that confirms he recognise my main concern from the twenty minutes sharing. After I shared my situation and my concern, my coach started to use his own words to sum up what I said during the last twenty minutes. The summarising skills assisted me to express what I said in a few sentences, so that we can bring those content to the next procedures of the coaching section. When I rethink the coaching section. I can still recall the feeling of being understood by the appropriate usage of the responding skills mentioned above. That’s very valuable and that enhance my willingness to share more because I know that the opposite side is aware of my saying and feeling underneath.
Apart from talking about my experience of experiencing good listening and responding skills, I’d like to talk about the power of silence. During the lecture time, we’ve gone through a lot of verbal ways to connect with helpee and create an environment that convey receptivity. Some people might think that the best way to help the others is to provide useful feedback and suggestions throughout the whole helping session. However, I think it’s only a myth, not truth. As a helper, sometimes keeping silence is a good way to participate and is beneficial to the helping section, verbal ways are only partial of our toolbox. There are a few importance of silence. Firstly, silence provides time for helpee to think before they say anything further. It is a way for helper to allow helpee to organise what he/she wish to talk after shared many information, allowing a short interval for them to pause before they talk further. Secondly, silene is also a good way to facilitate listening. When helper is keeping silence, he/she can put most of the focus on listening what the helpee is talking about and observing how the body gesture reflect the emotions of helpee. If the helper spend too much time on talking, it’s difficult for helper to do the things mentioned above. Thirdly, silence is also beneficial to helper because that allows helper to plan the next move during the time of silence. Helper can organise the content that the helpee shared and think of the best way to respond, such as paraphrasing with empathy, raising questions to remind helpee the existence of inconsistency or other counselling skills. To conclude, the power of silence is larger than our imagination. It’s worth to keep silent wisely when helper participate in a helping section. Sometimes it’s more useful than keep talking and try to persuade helpee to do something to react to their life events.
Talking is one of the activities that happened in our daily lives, but that doesn’t mean that every conversation we have are in good quality. The core reason is because quite a lot of people did not really listen to other’s sharing, and they are too keen on giving advise or express their ideas. If we wish the helpee felt that they were listened and empathically understood, helpers must use listening skills wisely. Firstly, non-verbal language is the skill that frequently use throughout the communication. Even though people are not saying any words, their cues and expressions can reflect their reaction regarding what the helpee said. Besides, non-verbal communication is beyond race and culture, even people from different countries are able to communicate via this way. Take siting position as an example, helpee is able to recognise if the helper is really interested to what they say. This can be recognised by how the helper sit on the chair. If the helper lean a little forward towards the helpee, this is an obvious signal to show he/she is interested in what the helpee is talking about. And that will encourage the helpee to share more about their experience. Of course, facial expression is another powerful way to express empathy and understanding towards the helpee. Even no words are used, these communications can show that helper is really listening.
Apart from non-verbal communication, open-ended questions is another good way to show helper are really focusing on the sharing of helpee. Sometimes helpee will only mention a very brief picture about their experience. That might because of incapability of self-reflection or helpee is having numerous hard feeling, thus he/she can only disclose a little. If helper is able to listen carefully and raise open-ended questions, a good opportunity will be created for helpee to further explain the situation or elaborate their emotion. I’m not saying helper should not use yes or no questions or leading questions, but those questions will limit the helpee’s answer. And helper may miss the chance to explore ideas and feelings of helpee. As a result, I’d say helper should use those questions with caution.
Without a doubt, skills are important for helpers to assist helpee. But at the same time, it’s also important to realize what kind of blocks to listening are affecting helper. No matter experienced helper or normal people, blocks to listening always exist due to various reason. For myself, distractions in the environment is a critical externa, blocks. I am quite sensitive to noises nearby and those noise constitute strong interruptions. My concentration will be diminished and thus I can’t pay full attention to the others. Other than distractions in the environment, pre-existing judgements is one kind of internal blocks for me to listen to the others. As mentioned in previous journal, I was grown up in a Christian background and thus most of my value are compatible to my faith. When I listen to other’s sharing, I found that my brain will generate some judgements unconsciously. For example, I found that I’m quite hard to show empathy to men that have extramarital affair because I think this violate my belief, and I will have strong biases to those people. As a result, I need to pay extra effort to disregard those judgements during the helping session.
In my own experience, prejudices is easily established within the society. I was grown up in a monoethnicity society that almost 90% are Chinese. Because of the homogeneity, it’s highly likely to meet friends that are from the same ethnicity. And at the same time, the crime rate of South Asians are higher than average. As a result, it’s easy for people to build up perception that many South Asians (in my hometown) are criminals and thus we should not get in touch with these people. Because of the above prejudices, I seldom communicate with South Asians even though my high school are very close to one South Asians community. Besides, I will always hold my pocket tight when I see there are some South Asians nearby.
On the other hand, family is another environment that create prejudices. When I was a child, my parents always emphasis only people with low education level will be blue-collar workers. Although I know their rationale is to encourage me to study hard, I still brainwashed by their point of view about blue-collar workers, I always think that they are people that are lazy when they are kids.
The above prejudices are reformed after I moved to UK. In the workplace and church, I have opportunities to meet people from various background. ’m able to listen their story and have more understanding about every person I met. During the communication with different people, I realised that it’s not reasonable to judge people based on their occupation or ethnicity. Working as a blue-collar worker not necessary because people are lazy, but that might because they have better skills and abilities in a non-office setting. After those interaction, I changed my mind and I tried to use new viewpoints to see people that are different. 3.2 After talking about my own experience about how prejudices was created in society and family setting, I’d like to further discuss the importance of helper to be aware of their difference with the helpee. As a metropolitan, London is full of people from different backgrounds and they all have their unique culture, ideas and value system. As a result, it’s not surprising that helper may have great probability to meet helpee that is very different. It’s critical for helper to be aware of their difference because the unconscious bias in helper’s mind will affect how helper treat the helpee when they have a section. For example, helper may have their own religion and thus will have some unintentional judgement towards helpee that have different sexual orientation or value about relationships. If helper is able to identify their unconscious bias and understand how their automatic serotypes works, then they can take action to create a non-judgemental environment for helpee to share their experience and difficulties.
Take myself as an example, one of my relatives is keen on gambling and sometimes he mentioned his difficulties about living cost. Since I think gambling is a bad behaviour and do not agree with the act of earning money driven by greedy, I found that it’s difficult for me to show empathy towards his situation. In my mind, I always thought that his situation might have been improved a lot if he gave up gambling. As a result, I’m not willing to build a close relationship with him because of this kind of bias. And I’m not willing to put effort to understand his life experience.
Empathy and sympathy are concepts that can be easily mixed up. But in the context of counselling, they are totally different. Empathy is an ability to understand and share the feelings of another person when they talk about their experience and feelings. It’s not about agreeing with or judging people’s point of view, but to show acceptance to their feelings regarding their own life experience. On the other hand, sympathy is an approach to give surface level understanding to other’s situation. Although people with sympathy will still acknowledge people’s feeling, they lack of sufficient understanding towards people’s emotion. Sympathetic person is not able to show understanding referring to the other’s perspective, they can only see the things from their angle.
To further elaborate the difference of empathy and sympathy, I’d like to share my story of not experienced empathy. When I was eighteen, I met three to four male friends that are at the same age regularly. Most of us shared our own recent stories when we met. One time I tried to share my own story because I need some support during that hard time. I tried to look for my first job after graduation from university, and I found that it’s difficult to find a suitable job. I was frustrated at that time, and I lost confidence to myself because I’ve spent several months to find a job already but did not get any positive feedback. After my sharing, I was expecting my friends to acknowledge my frustration and accept my emotions at that moment. However, my friends responded in another way. What they tried to do in the first place is to provide solutions about how to deal with my situations, for example, try to look for a job from another recruitment websites, rewrite the curriculum vitae, etc. I find myself couldn’t say anything after their suggestions, and I wish to leave them as soon as possible and find somewhere to be alone.
When I look back this event again, I can still remember my emotions since then. I thought I couldn’t feel any emotional support from my friends at that moment. What they cared about was how to tackle my problem, just like how we handle questions on public examination past paper. I wouldn’t say my friends do not care about my situation, but I think that is a good example to differentiate sympathy and empathy. What my friends tried to do is to understand my sharing using their own perspective. They think the best way to eliminate those emotions is to resolve the problem, that’s why they spent a long time to think of solutions for me. However, they did not realise my instant need at that time was acknowledgment of my feeling but not surface level understanding regarding my situation nor possible solutions regarding my situation.
For myself, I found that it’s not too difficult to feel empathic towards others. I think that may because of my personalities and the volunteer experience that I had during teenagers. I can always rejoice with people that rejoice; weep with people that weep. I noticed that I have this quality, that’s why I wish to learn more about how to utilise it. On the other hand, I noticed that some male who grown up from an environment that neglects emotions is hard to understand the concept of empathy. Because of their experience, they think that emotion is femaleine and not related to male, and they prefer to put emphasis on how to deal with existing and upcoming problems. These people might be able to get a good qualification in study or be promoted at workplace, but it’s common that they faced some failure when dealing with family members, friends or colleague. In my opinion, it’s not necessary to classify emotion as femaleine, it’s common for both male and female. Sensitivity to emotions is good for every human, and that’s the key to be empathic to other’s experience. If more people understand the importance of empathy, I believe people will find that it’s easier to deal with human conflicts and issues happened daily, and the whole society will beneficial from it.
Both helpers & counsellor will apply counselling skills when people share their problems & feelings with them. However, there are quite a lot of difference between the two roles. The most important thing is that counsellors have a higher ethical standard, for example, more awareness about the conflicts of interest. In general, a contractual agreement would be mutually agreed before the counselling begin. In contrast, helpers might not have the same level of awareness about the above area because of insufficient training. Moreover, counsellor had more knowledge about how to interfere using appropriate theory and approach, while helpers can only use basic skills to support the others. In some sever case, helpers is not expected to have sufficient training to deal with and thus have to suggest the helpee to seek professional assistance.
For myself, I noticed that I am quite familiar with basic counselling skills such as empathy, open-ended questions, and active listening. Besides, I read some books about counselling and I have some knowledge about various theories. As a result, I think I am a capable helper when my friends wish to share their issues. However, I think my limitations is that I did not have enough systematic training and I may overestimate my ability that I can help the helpee on my own. Moreover, since helpee that come to me are always my friends, it’s not possible to establish a therapeutic relationships between my friends and me. As a result, what I can always do is to understand their feeling and help them to re-think their standpoint about life problems. But I’m not able to develop any personalised treatment plans like what the counsellor can do.
Although all the people joining this class are studying counselling, it doesn’t mean that all people have the same motivation. The reason why I study this course is because I wish to discover the possibility that I can be a counsellor in UK considering English is my secondary language. For me, the motivation to study the course is to understand my strengths and limitations, so that I can make better career planning for my future life in the UK. I notice that all individuals come from different backgrounds and have their unique stories. For example, one classmate is keen on learning more about counselling because he understands more about himself during his own experience communicating with a counsellor. In contrast, the reason for another classmate to study this subject is because she wishes to learn some skills and help people at her workplace. It’s a good thing to meet people pursuing the same knowledge and skills but because of distinct motivations.
As mentioned before, different people are having their own reason to study, and it’s very common that people will have own focus during the lesson. For classmates that wish to learn some skills and use it at the workplace, I think they may be more interested in learning the basic counselling skills, so that they can apply them right away after the lessons. For students who are keen on understanding themselves, they might be more interested in understanding the impact of their originated family, spending time to study those theories and trying to link them with their own experiences. For myself, I think I will be more interested in noticing my oral language skills during practicing sections at lesson and to find out more information about the qualifications and progression route. Nevertheless, I think that will not affect how we help each other during helping interaction. We can still assist the others by paying attention to their sharing at the lessons. I believe that our uniqueness can enrich each other’s learning experience and we can all learn something that are different from our own perception. Of course, that requires everyone to be non-judgmental and willingness to listen.
Regarding judgments about the others, I find that it’s an interesting question. Although we only have limited time to know each other, I have already classified people to different categories based on first impressions and conversations that happened during the first lesson. For example, I will identify someone who is similar to my friends because their personalities seem similar. Most likely I will assume there mindset or way of doing things will be similar. I’d say it’s not a fair judgement, but I noticed that I already made the judgement unconsciously. One of the things that I keep reminding myself is that possibly I cannot control the creation of those unconscious judgement, but I can always remind myself not to fully rely on those judgements, and try to understand people by continuous communication during lesson. I think this self-talk is extremely important to me. Since I am aware of the existence of the judgement, I can then try to do something to face it.
不太記得我有沒有在blog 中提過，其實我自己對於參與小組查經的興趣並不太大。我認為仔細研讀某段經文需時幾天甚至幾星期，不止品味經文本身，更應比對不同學者對於經文背景／文本等等的解讀。因此我不太認為可以在短時間內有良好的O & I. 我更為喜愛的方式是先花時間研究經文結構、繼而尋找值得思索的問題、然後透過文字與不同年代不同傳統的信徒交流。相反，我比較喜歡預備小組查經，享受過程中與經文的對話。
It's always great to have some deep sharing about religious topic & what's in our mind. Thanks Marvin, he is really caring and I love his action a lot. It's really meaningful to say the questions twice (before we start), so that all of us can understand the meaning / ideas..
It's not easy to be a listener, but we always have chance to be a better one because we always meet brothers & sisters from different countries in the international fellowship. I wish we can have deeper understanding to everyone in the future!
