In the year I just returned to Beijing, I went to a big Christmas party.
They have an interesting game. When the girl enters the door, she leaves a note and writes her own phone number. Then the boys can go to Santa Claus and try their luck.
So, when the party suddenly shocked my phone, my female partner almost screamed with me, and then saw a tall and big boy coming to us from the crowd.
Mouth-watering, I want to move. Wow.
So, in the huge music, and the dancing crowd, we exchanged information with each other and chilled. When he learned that I was studying psychology, the air between us suddenly stagnate, then he turned his head and shouted at me, saying, "Exactly you can help me! I have such a thing blablabla... What do you say I should do?"
On this Christmas Eve, under the eccentric lights, the brightly dressed people laughed loudly around me, the dancing people rubbed my shoulders and came and went, I was with a big brother, standing in the middle of the party, with complex Mood, loudly "help him solve psychological problems."
That night, I naturally couldn't help the boy. There was a series of problems in my head that I couldn't ask on such an occasion, and I couldn't give him any helpful advice. I can only say something that is irrelevant and talk about comfort.
Since then, the mortal asked me what I did, I said, I am a kindergarten aunt.
When people know that you are studying psychological counseling, people seem to be friendly. When they encounter problems, it is easy to think of looking for you. I hope you can provide some "professional" help.
This is the embarrassing situation that I have encountered with my colleagues around me.
We know that in such chats and meetings, what we can do is not much different from what all people who know how to care about can do. I don't know how to explain to people why I can't provide "professional advice" or bring him "magical changes."
We often say that psychological counseling requires a “Therapeutic Container” (a container of therapeutic significance). This meaning refers not only to the physical counseling room but also to the psychologically meaningful and therapeutically meaningful space that the consultant has established for the visitor.
An American teacher used to give examples of this. He said that during his decades of consulting experience, he heard more than once when the visitor left, "Can I put my stress and grief on you first? Come back next week?"
In this way, the visitor does not have to return to his life with a heavy sorrow, ta knows that ta can come back to this place, and then face and deal with the part that he can't bear.
This is a different place from the real world.
In this therapeutic container, we talk about the unusual things in life and what others talk about. We build a different interpersonal relationship. Let's look at what is in our inner life and what is affecting it. Explore, and grow in a safe environment. As we first said, just like you can safely and nakedly go dancing with a counselor without having to worry about being hurt.
I have a colleague to do a personal experience (the counselor receives psychological counseling), and after a while, I met her and asked her how she was being consulted. She said, "Do you know, the important thing is, I know that there is such a place every week, there is such a person, there. It makes me feel confident and powerful."
You see, this is a world that is so different from the real world. In this way, the consultation can really begin to take effect. She began to have the courage to explore herself in the consulting relationship.
This is the Boundary of the consultation. This explains why your friend can't replace the role of a consultant. When a consultant appears as a friend, you don't feel any "fantastic changes" that ta brings to you. Why do your consultant friends sit in the coffee shop and talk to you for an hour or two, but you are not so well accepted. Why do consultants have to be "family", to fix the place, time, length, and fees, and to meet with you once, once and again? No matter how you ask, ta will neither give you a phone number and will try to avoid contact with you on any other occasion.
Because no matter how open you are and how good you are, I believe that when any information in the real world is involved, when the "the therapeutic container" is not established, you can't be confident from the bottom of your heart that you can really allow consultation. The teacher, even allowing himself, to walk into your life, the part that most needs courage to face.
As a result, the counselor becomes a profession, not a warm friend.
Therefore, when the friends around me cheered and said, after I met you, I was looking for you when I had a problem. My heart was full of sadness, sigh, you don’t know what a good consultant you are missing.