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. 

2023 Review

群體。關係

hierarchy定義了人與人的關係，但卻不能定義我們與那些愛我們的人的關係。很高興在外地重遇幾位重要的人&長輩，你們的存在實是我的福氣。謝謝你們多年來的關心愛護。



早前被邀請參與一個小組，與諸位友好一起細讀友人的信仰長文並作出討論。嘗試過參與編輯的工作後，對於出版社的員工多了一份尊重。另一方面，這次的邀請亦令我倍添對於母校的思念。謝謝師長們仍然記得我這個學生。（多謝巧儀幫我買書～）

雖然離開了第一個棲身的城市，但是我很感恩我們仍能保持與幾個party 的連結，在假期時共聚分享近況。謝謝你們的厚愛。

人或許會有美好的願望，但有些關係總是理還亂。畢竟有些東西已積累了一輩子，只有自身才能決定該如何處理。努力過就好，起碼我不會為此而後悔。

工作與新的城市生活

在新家園的第一份工作有苦有樂，一方面認識了一些頗好的同事，另一方面亦第一次忍不住在office 與某君小吵一場。最有喜感的應該是我在離職前幾天被幾位高層多次問到的問題：「我覺得你做得不錯，還以為你會應徵某部門的主管角色……為何要走呀？」。在離開前的一週，我從未聽過任何人在意過我們那一team。 難怪這部門的前人們無一留下來，甚至把所有的檔案也刪掉才離去。

第二季搬到了倫敦生活，認識了不少來自不同背景的新同事，同學及教會弟兄姊妹。或許我們的溝通不能像說母語一般順暢，但我深信我們還是可以有深度的交流分享。

目前來說，我想我還是比較喜歡大城市的生活多一點。至於定居這問題，還是留待晚一點再決定吧。


聆聽，零聽

早前在’未竟的目標’一文中提到我開始了修讀一個入門的輔導課程，朝這個方向踏出另一步。這門學科幫助我更為敏銳於自身與他者的情緒與行為反應，也令我對於人與人之間的互動有更多的反思－－如牛的「反芻」一般的反思，反思，再反思。我留意到一些痕跡與烙印怎樣跨越時間與空間，持續不斷地影響那些正在苦苦掙扎的人。在某些場境中，信仰成為某些人戰勝的憑證；同樣地也有一些個體看過自己本來的面目後，隨即忘了他的相貌如何，更用舌頭不當的對待他者。但願我可以好好善用自己的舌頭，避免說出不該談的東西。


Reason to study the CPCAB Level 2 course
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/11/reason-to-study-cpcab-level-2-course.html

Sharing at UK church -- Listening
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/03/sharing-at-uk-church-listening.html

就是開不了口
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/08/blog-post.html

言說與解讀 II
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/06/ii.html


「心理史學」

這一年到訪了幾個城市，逛了很多個博物館。每次逛完後都會想起阿寶的名言以及心理史學。 雖然這並不是一門真正的學科，但我認為它解釋了歷史對於人們的真正意義－－不在於未卜先知，而是明白人類的集體行為怎樣呈現出一些規律，某程度上成為命運共同體，如LCL 之海一般無分彼此，不論身份地位、價值觀……

曾經聽人說過一句頗有意思的說話：「在無數的小事上做錯決定也不打緊，最重要的是在人生最重要的幾個關頭做對決定」。那麼，什麼才是最重要的幾個關頭？有人說是找對的另一半，有人說是找對的職業……對你我來說，又是什麼？

逛博物館
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/04/blog-post.html


Remember me

這一年看了Elemental & Coco ,當中的畫面不斷的令我想起往事，想起很多面孔。有時在夢中見到諸君，醒來那刻真的十分痛苦。或許思念會是一種永遠存留的狀態？

扉掩于暮，居人之離思方深；
草綠有時，友人之歸期難必。

理性與感性之間
https://ykkyeung.blogspot.com/2023/06/blog-post.html




One more thing
在高談闊論時，我們總可以說出至理名言；
當危難臨到，人會如何回應？
所信的道會否被遺忘，成為空談的東西？

治國平天下實在離我太遠，
能夠將信仰踐行在修身齊家上，於願足矣

Conditions of Worth

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.