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erratioCounseling school is so great, you guys! (Except for the admin, which continues to suck hugely.)
I didn't realize how badly starved I was for (relatively) non-judgmental socializing or being able to nerd out about the things I'm really passionate about. (Yes, this sounds really obvious in hindsight. I thought that I was getting those things, but turns out the people I was socializing with weren't such a great fit. I could nerd out about things that I used to be extremely passionate about and still find interesting, and I could socialize with people who judged on different metrics).
In the theories class we've been covering the major schools of therapy, and trying out bits of the techniques in class and watching videos of them in action. The more I learn, the more commonalities I'm seeing between the techniques and the assumptions the theories make, modulo the underlying theory, which makes sense given the figures everyone keeps quoting about how the choice of modality makes up around 15% of the benefit of therapy, and even then it's more about the therapist feeling confident and comfortable with that modality rather than whether the modality is objectively better or not.
In the therapeutic communication class, I've discovered that being in the therapist role is strangely calming and leaves me feeling serene and at peace with myself and the world afterwards, even when there are other students less than a meter away ready to give me feedback on my technique. My current theory is that I'm focusing so hard on the client and on empathising/understanding them that I forget to be anxious or self-conscious for a while, and that the work of connecting with them is such that I've already known as soon as I finished that I've done a relatively good job, so there's no real fear or defensiveness associated with getting feedback. I'm not sure whether I hope that it keeps feeling like that as I learn more detail and get more feedback on what I'm doing (and see people with more complex problems rather than fellow students). On the one hand, it's definitely better than feeling really drained or learning to dread the experience because it feels hard. On the other, I'm suspicious of addictive experiences just on principle, and this certainly qualifies as one.
Another thing I've (re)learnt in communication class is how much meaning can depend on small details in speech. For example, I had a conversation with another student about the difference between asking directly about something versus framing it as "I'm curious about how [thing] is for you". I'd been viewing "I'm curious about [x]" as sort of a cheating method of sneaking a question in while technically not asking it as a question, but he found that when it was a direct question he jumped straight to intellectual and cached answers, while the "I'm curious" framing encouraged him to be curious and explore his experience.
I didn't realize how badly starved I was for (relatively) non-judgmental socializing or being able to nerd out about the things I'm really passionate about. (Yes, this sounds really obvious in hindsight. I thought that I was getting those things, but turns out the people I was socializing with weren't such a great fit. I could nerd out about things that I used to be extremely passionate about and still find interesting, and I could socialize with people who judged on different metrics).
In the theories class we've been covering the major schools of therapy, and trying out bits of the techniques in class and watching videos of them in action. The more I learn, the more commonalities I'm seeing between the techniques and the assumptions the theories make, modulo the underlying theory, which makes sense given the figures everyone keeps quoting about how the choice of modality makes up around 15% of the benefit of therapy, and even then it's more about the therapist feeling confident and comfortable with that modality rather than whether the modality is objectively better or not.
In the therapeutic communication class, I've discovered that being in the therapist role is strangely calming and leaves me feeling serene and at peace with myself and the world afterwards, even when there are other students less than a meter away ready to give me feedback on my technique. My current theory is that I'm focusing so hard on the client and on empathising/understanding them that I forget to be anxious or self-conscious for a while, and that the work of connecting with them is such that I've already known as soon as I finished that I've done a relatively good job, so there's no real fear or defensiveness associated with getting feedback. I'm not sure whether I hope that it keeps feeling like that as I learn more detail and get more feedback on what I'm doing (and see people with more complex problems rather than fellow students). On the one hand, it's definitely better than feeling really drained or learning to dread the experience because it feels hard. On the other, I'm suspicious of addictive experiences just on principle, and this certainly qualifies as one.
Another thing I've (re)learnt in communication class is how much meaning can depend on small details in speech. For example, I had a conversation with another student about the difference between asking directly about something versus framing it as "I'm curious about how [thing] is for you". I'd been viewing "I'm curious about [x]" as sort of a cheating method of sneaking a question in while technically not asking it as a question, but he found that when it was a direct question he jumped straight to intellectual and cached answers, while the "I'm curious" framing encouraged him to be curious and explore his experience.
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Date: 2018-09-09 11:15 am (UTC)