It is very important for every psychological counselor to find a supervisor or peer supervision group. Especially as a novice consultant, in the case of unclear personal boundaries or unclear consulting settings, it is often prone to anti-empathy or excessive affection, in short, excessive involvement. Even in professional training, we have repeatedly stressed that we should try to avoid being influenced by the emotional problems of visitors, but it is inevitable that consultants are warming their hearts with their lives and influencing their lives with their lives. The key is whether the consultant can realize his own state and then seek the help of his peers or the supervision of his mentor in time.
So, what kind of psychological counselors are prone to collapse? One is that in the process of self-growth, there are problems that need to be solved, and individuals do not know how to ask for help but blindly suppress their emotions; Second, I work with a strong feeling of helping others. I don't want to expose my weaknesses in front of help seekers or peers and insist on pretending to be myself. Anyway, it needs to grow.
I remember a supervisor once said that psychological counselors knew how to stay in the consulting room from the moment they walked out of it, instead of going home with visitors' questions.
First, deal with and appease some unexpected situations of relatively unstable visitors. For example, they sent me WeChat and called me temporarily. I need to take time and energy to deal with these things while dealing with daily affairs. Temporary disruption of the plan will bring people a particularly obvious sense of fatigue, especially when the schedule is full.
Second, the story told by the visitor or the emotional vent caused my inner turmoil.
Psychological counselors use themselves as a tool, more precisely, their understanding of life and human nature as a tool to capture the inner fear, anxiety, confusion and despair of visitors. I must be very firm myself to have the strength to stabilize my visitors.
And if the facts or emotions shown by the other party touch the weaknesses or blind spots in my whole system, it may cause my existential anxiety. At this time, my inner energy will consume more.
Third, my long-term relatively solidified lifestyle has caused my inner passivation.
As a psychological counselor and self-media author, I have some fixed tasks to complete every week, plus some regular consultation arrangements for long-distance visitors. In fact, my life is framed to some extent, and the room for adjustment is not as big as that of freelancers as others think.
Routine work often dulls a person's mind, but my job requires me to be keen, enthusiastic and insightful about life. Therefore, I need to find a source of enthusiasm and strength for my life to overcome being passive, which requires me to make adjustments on the basis of my existing life, and this adjustment will inevitably consume energy at the beginning.
As a counselor who has to deal with all kinds of visitors every day, I really feel the consumption of inner energy. But this kind of consumption is not simply because of receiving emotional garbage. In fact, the sad things I hear from visitors every day don't really constitute consumption for me. My inner fatigue mainly comes from the following three aspects:
1. Respond to and appease some unexpected situations of relatively unstable visitors. For example, they sent me WeChat and called me temporarily. I need to take time and energy to deal with these things while dealing with daily affairs. Temporary disruption of the plan will bring people a particularly obvious sense of fatigue, especially when the schedule is full.
Second, the story told by the visitor or the emotional vent caused my inner turmoil.
Psychological counselors use themselves as a tool, more precisely, their understanding of life and human nature as a tool to capture the inner fear, anxiety, confusion and despair of visitors. I must be very firm myself to have the strength to stabilize my visitors.
And if the facts or emotions shown by the other party touch the weaknesses or blind spots in my whole system, it may cause my existential anxiety. At this time, my inner energy will consume more.
Third, my long-term relatively solidified lifestyle has caused my inner passivation.
As a psychological counselor and self-media author, I have some fixed tasks to complete every week, plus some regular consultation arrangements for long-distance visitors. In fact, my life is framed to some extent, and the room for adjustment is not as big as that of freelancers as others think.
Routine work often dulls a person's mind, but my job requires me to be keen, enthusiastic and insightful about life. Therefore, I need to find a source of enthusiasm and strength for my life to overcome being passive, which requires me to make adjustments on the basis of my existing life, and this adjustment will inevitably consume energy at the beginning.
So, if one day I collapse, please don't simply think that I am overwhelmed by the negative emotions of visitors. Believe me, my "cause of death" is definitely much more complicated ... time.
Hello, I'm Feng Huzi from Duolun Psychology. As a counselor, let me tell you a story first, which is a bit long.
This morning, I opened my eyes and looked blankly for a while. "Who am I? Where am I? What should I do? Whose bed is this? " Seeing nobody around, I fell asleep again. If it was before, if there were people around me, I would never sleep. I feel very happy to sleep alone now. "
"Why? Why do you feel this way? " With the feeling of gossip and psychedelic, I looked at Mr. Wang excitedly, who did not want to be named.
Teacher Wang, sex is confidential, age is confidential, address and phone number are confidential, and the relationship with me is confidential. The only thing I can tell you is that he is a counselor.
The development of the story is like this.
Miss Wang, there was an object before, and we talked for more than a year. As we all know, a perfect love goes through five stages: acquaintance-passionate love-running-in-sublimation-intergenerational inheritance. These five stages are called marriage after crossing, regret or lovelorn after crossing.
Many people's love is in the "running-in" stage, and Mr. Wang is no exception.
I don't want to describe too much what Mr. Wang looks like when he has a good relationship with his partner. After all, being single dog hurts me too much.
In a word, if I was not forced by life and couldn't afford it, I really wouldn't agree to their invitation to eat hot pot together.
For example, in the process of eating hot pot, I clearly ordered a lot of dishes, but I was often not satisfied because they didn't give me meat.
Every time I want to put a piece of meat, I put a piece of green vegetables in the bowl and say to me, "You have lost weight recently, so you should eat more green vegetables and less meat." Besides, what's the use of eating so much meat yourself? There is no place to spend. Meat should be left to those in need. "
Well, I'll have vegetables if I eat them, but I can always have a bowl of rice. He also said to me, "What's for hot pot? It's a waste to eat so many dishes. " Then he put a cucumber on me, and my face turned green.
What's more, the two gave each other meat for a simple reason: "Dear, you have lost weight recently, eat more meat to make up for it, or I will feel distressed."
Mom, I was told yesterday that I just weighed myself and gained two pounds. Who lost weight? All right, I won't pay, I'll bear it. I really want to throw up in your face!
Mr. Wang often invites me to dinner recently. At first, I refused. Later, I heard him say that I ate crayfish instead of hot pot, so I gladly went to the appointment.
After coming, my god, Mr. Wang is the only one. Under my shocked and psychedelic eyes, Mr. Wang explained that, well, he had a quarrel with his partner.
I picked up the phone in fear and pretended that my boss was looking for me, ready to run away. Teacher Wang said, "I ordered the overlord shrimp set meal." You probably don't know what overlord shrimp set meal is, and I can't describe it in words. Anyway, it's three layers, crayfish of various flavors, and the first layer is about as big as "manual than round").
Between the flames of calcium carbide, I put down the phone and sat in a chair cleverly, sincerely and politely waiting for him to continue.
He was silent for a while, but he still didn't speak. (My inner activity: "Well, silence is very common in consultation. Who cares? Just cook the shrimp and support the crayfish". )
..... (Close-ups of all scene characters are omitted here, please fill them in by yourself. )
At last, when I ate the nth shrimp, Teacher Wang said, "Is it delicious?" .
"delicious"
"Well, xx likes this kind of crayfish, too."
What? Well, you won, and you succeeded in breaking the silence.
Next, I listened carefully to Mr. Wang's narrative. As for the content of their quarrel, I don't remember. The only thing I remember clearly is a passage that Mr. Wang said.
Because I am a consultant, should I be more tolerant, more patient and more considerate in this relationship? After a long time, I feel that my energy is almost hollowed out.
I'm going home to get along with him now, and I always feel like I'm consulting. Once I can't bear his emotions and feelings, he always says, "aren't you a counselor?" You are so tolerant and receptive to your visitors, why are you so kind to me ... "
I really can't help going back once. "You are not my visitor, and I am not your consultant."
This passage impressed me so deeply because as consultants, we (Mr. Wang and I) often encounter such a problem in our communication: the requirements of the other half are changing, which makes us very confused.
I've thought about this problem seriously. In the final analysis, it is our unclear role positioning and our ideal expectation for the other half.
Being a consultant will inevitably lead to an increase in expectations for the other half. They expect us to be considerate and reasonable like consultants, and they also hope that we can avoid over-analyzing them and causing their panic like ordinary people.
Similarly, in intimate relationships, most of our contradictions and quarrels come from the inconsistency between each other's role positioning and our own role positioning.
For example, in family of origin, the father expects the mother to take care of the family children and help share part of the family's economic burden; My mother wants to be respected as an independent and free object. The expected goals of the two are inconsistent, and contradictions and frictions are inevitable.
Alas, as a psychological counselor, intimate relationships are really not much different from ordinary people. Sometimes, it may be more difficult.
Please be kind to the counselors around you. Out of the consulting room, we really don't have that much energy to analyze everyone's. We are really restrained when analyzing non-visitors. So, you can't bully me just because I am a counselor!
As a consultant, you will be more or less influenced by the emotions or things of visitors, but they all have a good regulatory effect. If I encounter such unreasonable bullying of tourists in the story, I will also have an emotional breakdown.
Psychological counselors accept emotional garbage every day, will it collapse?
Although many industries look very different, but the principle is the same, just like acrobats, do those dangerous and difficult movements all day, will it be dangerous prematurely? Will people who play poisonous snakes for a living be killed by poisonous snakes early? Will medical staff who work in infectious disease wards all day be more susceptible to infectious diseases? On the surface, this probability exists and is very large, but in fact, these people are less likely to be in danger than ordinary people because they are more professional.
An excellent psychological counselor knows the pathogenesis of mental illness and how to resolve the negative energy of visitors. Communicate with some people full of negative energy every day. The purpose of work is to get them out of this state, but they will resolve these negative emotions in time and help visitors change these wrong negative thinking. Not only will they not be affected by these situations, but they will increase their immunity, analyze their views on problems and reduce the influence of negative emotions on themselves when they encounter unsatisfactory things. The more professional the counselor is, the stronger the ability to resolve negative emotions.
I have been in psychological counseling for seventeen years, during which many people have asked this question. In fact, my experience and answers are different in every career stage. I may be more realistic in the early days-psychological counselors generally have their own counselors, have received self-experience (personal growth) for a certain period of time, and will always maintain professional learning, supervision, peer groups and other systems in their careers. These are protective factors for maintaining personal health and handling difficult cases. But now, I want to talk about my personal feelings from the subjective level:
1. Psychological counselors do listen to negative emotions and events of visitors many times, but they are not "emotional garbage". Many times, tourists don't want to "take out the garbage" or vent. Psychological counseling will help visitors better understand the source, function and significance of negative emotions, and also help Ta to understand life events from a broader perspective, rather than just feeling that she is a "victim". The process of dealing with so-called "negative energy" is not as bad and helpless as imagined.
2. Consultation is not just about discussing negative aspects. In fact, visitors often have good feelings and expressive skills, and at least have a certain degree of psychological understanding, so they will be willing to choose psychological counseling as a way to solve their life troubles, and the counseling relationship provides protection and support. Therefore, the topics about life that I discussed with visitors in consultation, including love and hate, life and death, worry and fear, gains and losses, wishes, fantasies and dreams, intimate relationships, complex emotions and sex, are often beyond the reach of daily conversation. I not only learned a lot from them, but also deeply enjoyed the communication process. This is one of the rewards of this profession.
Generally speaking, psychological counseling is a process of constantly facing the difficulties and limitations of life. Counselors are more likely to realize many deep-rooted desires in human nature than other professions (the desire to be loved, the desire to rely on, the desire to live forever, the infinite desire, etc.). ) can't be realized, life is a process of constant loss. But what this process brings is not necessarily depression and depression, but more likely mental maturity. To borrow a sentence from romain rolland, "There is only one true heroism in the world, and that is to love life after recognizing the truth of life."
First of all, thank you for your question, which also shows that you are full of curiosity and concern about the work of psychological counselors. As a psychological counselor, I can talk about my feelings.