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

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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

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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.