Grief of an old widow

During the lesson, we spent some time to discuss a case regarding an old widow and her grief. During the discussion, some classmates suggested to find ways to assist the widow to regain interest to her hobbies and look forward to the future that without her husband. I understand their intention is to help the widow to get rid of the grief quickly, but I’m not sure if it’s too pushy. In the point of view of person-centred approach, I think the key is not to guide the widow to the direction we think is good to her, but to understand what she wish to deal with at the moment. I think what I should focus on is to demonstrate unconditional positive regard to her situation and try to understand what she wish to talk about. It’s understandable that she may not wish to talk too much because of the grief, counsellor have to try their best to demonstrate empathy via non-verbal communication as main channel. If she wish to share about her own situation, I will make sure enough time is spent, so that she have a space to talk whatever she wish to talk about, probably her feeling about the lost, what she thought regarding her children or other areas that she wish to share. Besides, the case mentioned Helen have signs of depression. I think it’s needed to consider referral if her situation is beyond the ability of a counsellor.




To conclude, I shared my understanding of the person-centred approach by sharing my comments about a case. I tried to apply the concepts of the approach and talk about what I think is appropriate to do when using the approach to the old widow.

Relationship with friends in an eye of person-centred theory

Today I’d like to use the person-centred theory to discuss my own relationship with my male friends. In my home country, good students are always expected to study science subject. And students learned to sort things by using scientific and rational way of thinking. I struggled with my future at that moment because of family financial situation and I’m not sure what I wish to study in university. So I tried to seek help from my friends. After a few conversations, I found that it’s difficult to continue the dialogue. My friends believed the best way to sort the emotions is to sort the problem itself, so they tried to offer various ways to solve my problem, such as inviting me to study and careers event and tuition class that can enhance my examination skills. learned the penson-centred theory, I understand more about my feeling at that time. The suggestions that my friends proposed were very useful, but I found that they never understand my underneath fear nor stress. I couldn’t feel their empathy and I felt I was a problem that to be solved and I was dehumanized. I’m not saying my friends didn’t care about me, but what they offered was focusing on solving the challenges that I faced but didn’t consider my emotional needs, and thus I didn’t feel their comfort. I think that might because we’re shaped by the logical way of thinking learned from the science subjects, thus it’s emphasis on finding solutions instead of demonstrating unconditional positive regard and empathy. 

Attachment theory and my childhood experience

In this paragraph, I’d like to use attachment theory as a foundation to discuss how my childhood experience affects my interpersonal relationship. I think this is a good starting point to understand how the interaction between a child and mother will affect the interaction with other people. I was diagnosed eczema when I was a kid. The red and scaly skin was annoying and that affected my daily life a lot. Apart from physically unwell, that also affected my appearance. But interestingly, the skin condition didn’t affect my self-esteem nor formed any obstacle for me to make friends with the others. I met some good friends during the key stage one and two, and I had an enjoyable primary school life and some wonderful friendships. When I looked back this history, I thought a possible reason why eczema didn’t affect me too much is because a secure attachment was developed when I interacted with my mother since the infant stage. My mother provided an environment that was full of love and acceptance and I had grown up with prompt response and sufficient physical touch. I remembered that I can always seek help and support from my mother when needed. And my request was never neglected. As a result, I was empowered to explore the world freely and try to interact with other kids in a friendly way. Even though the illness still exists, I still feel comfortable to build interpersonal relationships with the others.

In the second paragraph, I’d like to share what I heard from a helpee and discuss how the childhood experience formulates anxious-resistant insecure attachment. One of my helpees was grew up in a family that lack of love. Her mother spent most of her attention to take care of helpee’s elder brother and rarely spend time with the helpee. Unfortunately, helpee’s elder brother treated her badly because of his own emotional problem. As a result, helpee is grown up in an environment that didn’t offer sufficient care and love from other family members. And she established a mindset that close relationship can only obtained by ingratiate someone. When the helpee grown up, she wished to draw attention from friends and other males and tried to make them happy, so that she might able to build close friendships or love relationships. After a few helping sessions, she realized her way of building relationships is because of what she encountered during childhood and puberty. And the past hindered her to maintain proper and healthy relationships. Although we didn’t managed to find a possible way out during the sessions, she’s still delighted to understand herself a bit more and she wish to continue to explore possible ways to deal with the insecure attachment.

To conclude, I tried to use the attachment theory to understand my own history and what I heard from a helpee. And I found out that the childhood experience affect people a lot. The interaction between mother and children not only affects the childhood, and it’s highly likely that it will affect the rest of the life. However, I don’t think that the attachment type will remain unchanged for the whole life, I believe there’s possibility to change if people experience proper attachment with their partner or other intimate relationship throughout the life. Since I only have limited understanding about attachment at the moment, it worth more investigation and discussion regarding this before I make any conclusion.

Ideas from psychodynamic approach

I’d like to discuss the fusion of sugerego and values I learned. Superego represents the mind that what I wish to achieve in an ideal world and it regulates my desire, behaviour and speech. The key question is what kind of source that I refer to when the superego is formed. For myself, I think that relates to what I learned from some individuals and church. I am a believer since I was a kid, and I believed that the teaching from the bible is what I wish to follow in my whole life. As a result, the Christian value became the ideal value that determine what’s right or wrong and guide me to become the person that I wish to be. On the other hand, I met many good people at school and church. They did a lot of great things to help other people because of their religion. I was attracted by their personality and doing; thus, I wish to follow these role models’ path and act like them when I grown up. That means my superego was gradually formed by learning from value of religion and some role models, and most of those values are overlapped. When I became an adult and encountered struggles in daily life, I noticed how these values deeply affect me. I found that it’s challenging to completely follow the values when I face people that run counter to the values that I trust, and that make me pain to follow the value such as ‘love your enemies’. I think the struggle between my superego and how my ego balance reality and ideal is the biggest challenge for the past few years. The struggle not just affect how I work, but also challenge me how to maintain a proper relationship with various parties.

別了，母親

自從爺爺在十多年前返回天家後，我家很久沒有再經歷喪親了。想不到在這兩年中發生了兩次，實在叫人黯然神傷。過往的七個月實在非常漫長，我感覺到自己失去了以文字表述內心感受的能耐。對一個喜歡以文字記下心路歷程的人來說，這實在是一件頗嚴重的事。或許這也反映了這事對我的影響有多大？在知道母親患病之後，我改變了一向甚少請求他人代禱的習慣，主動邀請我所認識的弟兄姊妹記念我家的需要。我一向不相信神跡會出現在我身邊，但這次我真的很希望上帝能重現福音書上病得醫治的事蹟。當然，萬物最終都有其定時。相聚的時間如是，人的壽數亦如是。

我心中的母親是一位和藹可親而又優雅的女性。她不是一個外向的人，但她從不缺乏至交好友。她並沒有做過那些轟轟烈烈的事，但卻又在不知不間影響我怎樣待人接物。現透過數段文字記錄我心目中的母親。

－－－

石硤尾與南山村
或許是性格與成長經驗使然，母親偏愛與我們到上述兩個地方吃早餐和買菜。奶茶、雞尾包、雞仔餅、砵仔糕……這些食物都烙印著與母親相處的印記。我非常感恩我在童年時有這一種經驗，不然我的人生軌跡應該會非常不一樣。昔日那間茶餐廳已物是人非，唯獨占美餅店仍舊屹立，但我再也見不到那愛喝奶茶的身影了。

除此之外，石硤尾亦是我經常「請醫生飲茶」之處。由於體弱多病，母親經常與我出入診所成為醫務所的常客，我仍記得坐在接待處代為招呼來者的情境。現在回想，原來母親在多年前已展露出與病人同行的愛心與耐性，不止澤及家人，更樂意陪伴有需要的他者。

關係
我還記得小時候睡不著時母親總會在床邊輕唱「親愛的家驥啊，你在想什麼」的那段回憶。我不太記得童年時有什麼特別難忘的對話，我只記得母親極少打罵，也甚少與我爭執，最難忘的應該是她懊惱於怎樣管教青少年時期的我吧。自高中時代後，母親甚少干涉我的個人選擇－－那怕她並不理解／同意我的想法。我相當感激她採用了這一種管教的模式，令我學懂「先坐下酌量」，並為自己的決定負責。而她也總會一直在背後默默支持我，鼓勵我朝自己的方向進發

母親並不是那種相識滿天下的人，除了一些相識數十年的朋友外，她大部分時間也花了在照顧家庭以及原生家庭上。她十分疼愛每一個家人，總是用溫柔的言行去表達自己對於家的在乎。此外，她與夫家各人的相處展現一種有別於固有印象的可能性。

靈程
母親在我十多歲時決志受洗。她常常說自己不精於讀書，所以常常懊惱於那些有關靈命進深的技巧與知識。不過她並沒有因為這樣而停下腳步，反倒天天早晨花時間讀經禱告，嘗試挑戰自己的弱項。此外，她更嘗試學習帶領初信班，扶助那些初信者。對於一個不愛讀書的人來說，這實在是一種莫大的委身。

相比起為初信者傳道授業解惑，我更為驚嘆她對於長者的那份愛心。那怕是在疫情期間，她都時刻關心他人，記掛不懂科技的人連繫外界的需要。在她與別人的互動中，我看到她何等重視別人。或許她並沒有她渴求的天賦或技巧，她擁有的體貼與愛心卻是我所自愧不如的。

聆聽與情緒
母親是一個很好的聆聽者。她總是耐心聆聽別人的觀點，然後再給予回應。現在的我才明白這是一份何等寶貴的能力。

隨著閱歷增添，我越發敬佩母親的情緒穩定性。有別於錢財，有些東西只能夠透過言傳身教去展現。母親一向都給我一種情緒相當平穩的感覺，她甚少會對身邊的人呈現負面情緒。或許她不懂得賣弄複雜的學術名詞，但她令我明白到了解與控制自身情緒的重要性與可行性。在數十年後，我未必會再記得筆記上那些理論，但我必定會記得她在不同處境中所展露的那份安然。

有時閒聊時母親會問我自己是不是一個好媽媽，有沒有做過甚麼令我受傷害的事。我很想告訴別人妳是一個好得無比的母親，感謝妳陪伴我走過三十多年高高低低的日子。或豐富或缺乏，妳都把最好的給予了我們。謝謝妳。

－－－

以前從沒想過要好好哀傷是一件如斯困難的事。人與事交錯所建構的旋渦令哀傷成為一種奢侈品，也令我深陷於別的枝節所誘發的感受當中。而這亦使我難以真實的面對自己失去母親的哀傷中，實屬無奈。

謝謝諸位在過往半年透過不同的方式展現對我的關懷，不論是開放住處、關心問候又或是其他的方式。我深深感受到你們的重視及愛。在此向各位一一道謝。

＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝

The time has come and I lost my mum (until Jesus comes again). Thanks for all the prayers and kind words during the last few months. I’m so glad to have amazing brothers & sisters, schoolmates & colleagues during the difficult moment.

父母親延伸天父愛
甘心獻身像道橋

LifeLine Reflection - in terms of being a helper

I was helped by a helper 17 years ago. I experienced how counselling skills can help the others, and I decided to be a helper and help friends and other people I met. I wish to share what I've experience with people.

I faced great doubt from people that I trusted. I lost my passion of being a helper and I gradually fade out from the helping work. I spent a lot of time to deal with the emotions and rethink the heping work that I did and the meaning of being a helper.

I met another helper and he helped me to summaeise what's happened and the reason why I'm frustrated for the last few years. And I realised I have to forgive those people who made me suffer. Beside, I met helpee that I helped and I heard her appreciation about my work and how I changed her life, I regain passion to be helper. 

Reflection about feedback

 

Feedback skills to provide constructive feedback to other learners.

Since I have more and more chance to work with the classmates, now I’m able to provide feedback to compare and contrast the performance at the earlier stage and now. I think it’s a good way to encourage people that they have great improvement throughout the training period  and thus have motivation to keep the good work. On the other hand, I wish to keep improving my skills of providing feedback, so that I can give beneficial comment to the others instead of just say something that can’t help people to further develop his skills.

Strong areas of feedback and areas you feel could be improved/are a challenge

I got a reminder from a classmate and he reminded me that I should keep calm when I heard strong emotional expression from helpee. He noticed my performance when we worked on a very bad situation, he reminded that I have to try my best to control myself and use the counselling skills to do whatever I can to assist helpee. I think what he said is constructive. Probably I will not face such difficult scenario a lot, but it’s worth to be prepared before it happen. And I think that’s something that I can do better if I wish to helper the others in the future.

Feedback that aided your skills improvement/re-enforced something you do well

A feedback that I found useful is about what’s the best timing for helper to respond to helpee. Because of my personal experience, I always think that I should give sufficient time helpee to express himself before I say anything. But from another point of view, that will shorten the time that I as a helper to get involved in the helping session using the counselling skills. While I’m still struggling aboiu this, now I try to react differently during the triad. I wish I can find out the best timing for myself in the future.

你所愛的人病了

如非因為功課的緣故，我想我整個2024的上半年應該一點文字也不會留下。

我應該怎樣形容現時的狀態？我也不太清楚。或許應該算是失語？

自上一次經歷神一的思想衝擊後，我很久沒有經歷過這種的感覺了。

直到如今，我還未能完全處理背後的那些感受

因我所恐懼的臨到我身，我所懼怕的迎我而來。我不得安逸，不得平靜，也不得安息

每當我在夢中想起你被病魔摧殘的樣子，我的淚水就不住的湧出來

－－

感謝疼愛我以及我的家人的你們。教會的諸位在我和我家的重要時刻從沒有缺席，真的非常感謝大家言語上的關愛問候與及行動上的支持。雖然相見的時間不多，但我記得你們所做的一切的。

除了引用shirley 常說的「無言感激」外，我也不知有沒有更好的字句

－－

或許我也會做一樣的事，說一樣的話

「人若想與你說話，你就厭煩嗎？但誰能忍住不說呢？…… 這理我們已經考察，本是如此，你須要聽，要知道是與自己有益。」

－－

頭腦上我理解話語的表面及底層意思，也明白字裡行間的關心。但實際上我卻感到不斷被否定。

那怕我以接近透支的方式去做我能夠做的事，仍然是不夠、不夠、不足夠。

「你已做得很好，但你還可以做得更多更多更多更多更多更多更多……」

－－

世界最遙遠的一種相距中

處境都變, 情懷未變

留下只有思念

一串串永遠纏

Feedback to others

 

In this paragraph, I’d like to review my response when I give feedback to others. I think I’m a good observer in terms of catching some key moments from the whole triad and provide feedback to the classmates. It’s not difficult for me to provide comment using the ‘feedback sandwich’ approach. In most of the time, I think I can provide objective comment and some suggestion which is beneficial to the classmates. For example, I suggested a helper to assist helpee to recognize and name the emotions instead of just repeat the action. I know that it’s useful to defang helpee’s negative emotions. On the other hand, I noticed that I’m not good at memorizing the whole conversation during the triad when I am an observer. That means it’s quite difficult me to separate the entire session into small parts and analysis each part in a detailed way. As a result, I’m not able to reviewing the whole dialogue that throughout the triad and comment how helper can do better when responding to helpee. In my point of view, good constructive feedback should consist of observation from both micro and macro way, covering the way of dialogue, body gesture and counselling skills. In this way, the observer can offer comprehensive comment that assist helper to understand himself better. If I have a chance to study higher level course, I think I will need to put some effort at this area. 

In the next paragraph, I’d like to discuss the importance of sensitivity around ending a helping session. As a helper, I’m trained to help the helpee to achieve what he wish to achieve or solve within the agreed timeframe. And it’s important for helper to apply various skills throughout the session to accomplish this main goal. During the whole session, there’re always unexpected situations and helpee may find that what he raises at the beginning is not his real concern and a new area come up and worth further discussion. For example, helpee may wish to talk about his anger to his partner at the beginning. But he may discover the grieving from the family of origin. In this scenario, the time left maybe insufficient for helper to explore this new area fully with the helpee. If helper insist to talk about the new area within a tight schedule, helper might not able to express his thought and feeling completely when the session comes to an end. And helper will then fall into a dilemma of what to do next. To prevent this scenario, it’d be better to end the current session appropriately and suggest to continue the dialogue about the new findings at the next session. To achieve this, helper should always be aware of the time remaining throughout the session and seek the best timing to end the session smoothly. In this way, helpee can tidy up his emotion a few minutes earlier and ready to wind up the session. Besides, a proper ending can ensure the helping relationship is well maintained, thus helpee can come back and talk about the unfinished area later if he wish to. 

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.

Developed relationships with other people

During the lesson, I had chances to understand the five archetypes via the role play. And the most unforgettable type is ‘the parent’. I was working in a company that many of the coworkers are mothers and most of the are older than me. When I look back to that working experience, I noticed that a few female colleagues seem apply the ways that they communicate with their children to the workplace. Firstly, they frequently use the tone and wording that they teach their children when talking to me. This happened a lot when I joined the company right after I graduated from university. Secondly, it’s quite hard for me to propose my ideas when we were having discussion about how to execute instruction from the headquarter. I can feel that my opinion was neglected but not rejected because of its feasibility. At that time, I’m not aware that the pros and cons of the parent archetypes until I look back the past a few years later.  In some sense, they gave me great support when I was struggling how to get used to the work-related tasks at the very beginning. And I’m very grateful about their help. However, there’s also drawbacks due to this relationship pattern. It’s quite clear that they brought what they gained from their family to the workplace and applied to younger colleagues. As a result, they often treated me as their kids but not a coworker. Although my working experience was less than my colleague, that doesn’t mean that my judgement is always wrong. Technically this hindered the possibilities that we can build a healthy working relationship. 

After talking about difficulties that I’ve experienced in developing and maintaining relationships with others, I’d like to do some reflection about self-disclosure during the helping interaction. When helpee shared something that helper had similar experience before, it might be a good chance for me as a helper to talk about part of my own story to echo helpee. The benefit of self- disclosure is quite obvious , it’s a good skill for helpee to know that I’m really listening and I understand their situation. If helpee knew that someone have had similar experience as theirs and that can facilitate the helping session if I can make good use of the self-disclosure and then assist helpee to face their emotions and struggles. However, there’s also potential dangers about using this skill during the helping interaction. I might have a temptation of talking too much about my own experience and thus deprive the moment that helpee should have to talk about their own story. And I may trigger my hidden emotions by accident because of those self-disclosure and thus fall into the role of victim, referring to the Karpman Drama Triangle. If that happen, it’s hard for me to help the helpee because I’m trapper in a helpess scenario. Since self- disclosure is a double edged sword, I think I should take extra awareness when using this skill during the helping session. In my opinion, the key to success is not using which skill, but to use the most appropriate skill at the right timing when helping the helpee. 

Open and closed questions

When helper is having session with helpee, sometimes helpee have a lot of things in their mind and it’s hard for them to verbalise about those issues systemically. Moreover, helpee might wish to go through all of them in that session. However, this is not the best option for both helper and helpee. Given that the time of each session is limited, it’s not possible to talk about too much topic. It’s better to pick partial of them and focus on them first. As a result, it’s important for helper to use the focusing skill to assist helpee to prioritise what is the main theme that helpee wish to talk about during the session. For the rest, helper can discuss with helpee and see if they wish to talk about them in future session. During the practising session, I tried to use the focusing skill when helpee listed out a lot of things they wish to mention. Firstly, I listened to what helpee wish to talk about. Secondly, I listed out the issues that the helpee mentioned and asked that he wish to discuss in this session. During the process, autonomy is given to helpee, so that they have full control about what they wish to focus on this time. Even though I’m interested to other topic, it’s important to keep focusing on what the helpee wish to talk but not override his feelings and wants. Finally, helpee identified the isssues that he wish to talk at that moment and we had some time to talk about them. I found that focusing is very important because it allows me to utilize the session and find out what’s the most important thing that is in helpee’s mind, considering we only have limited time to talk about a few. I believe the focusing skill will be one of the skills that I use frequently when talking with helpee that worried and upset about many things. 

The difference between open and closed questions are whether they are facilitating the helpee to share more about their experience. For example, yes–no question is a typical closed question because it can be answered with a few words. In contrast, open questions are broad and can be answered by helpee in detail. In most of the case, it’s always preferred to use open questions when having a helping session with helpee, so that helpee is encouraged to share more about their feeling or ideas. And helper can then understand the helpee’s situation and provide suitable feedback afterwards. In some cases, closed questions might be useful and thus helper should still consider to use if it’s an appropriate scenario. Closed question can be used as a question to initiate further conversation. For example, asking if helpee agree or disagree with what the helper summarized, and continue with another follow up question after the helpee replied ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’. 

Apart from choosing open and closed questions, there’s another core question that helper need to bare in mind. When I’m thinking of what kind of questions that I wish to ask the helpee during the session, there’s always a temptation to ask questions that satisfy my own curiosity but not for the benefit of the helpee. It’s critical for me to ask questions that are corresponding to the helpee’s situation and is helpful to assist helpee to deal with their own situation. If helper is aware of this temptation and understand the importance to keep focus on helpee’s agenda, that can help to minimize the tendency that helper asking irrelevant questions.