Being an Online Counselling student

Well - it's nearly over! This time last year I was looking at an advert for online training for counsellors and this year I've successfully finished the general certificate and and will (hopefully) have completed all the diploma work by Christmas.

What a year! I've made new friends from peers online, I have a support network and supervision group. I have experience of transferring my counselling skills from a face to face to an online environment - firstly safely in role play then with volunteers who know we are qualified and experienced counsellors but are increasing our skill base by learning to work effectively and ethically online.

I can hardly even start to explain how much I have learned in the last 11 months. From being a technophobe who ran to my husband every time something went wrong with my computer I now know how to encrypt Word documents to make sure all work is confidential. I have researched other sites to find out what works and what does not from a professional and marketing standpoint. I know how to attach links, use Twitter and Facebook for business, blog !!!

I did a talk for others a couple of weeks ago and my husband could not believe I knew so much - he wants me to set up social media marketing for him now because he does not know where to start.

I have learned how to use the core conditions - and show those in an environment where my client cannot see me, and to gently question for clarity where I cannot see my client, and many other ways of communicating where there is no visual contact beyond the written word. I have learned how effective transference can be online - and also its pitfalls! I have extended my use of creative working for therapy in narrative and creative ways and look forward to the end of year party as an avatar in second life.

I have met some of the people I have worked with over the last year online - and what fun it was putting faces and personalities to people I 'knew'. It was so strange, but shows how effectively you can get to know someone you have never seen, that in a room I could guess who people were before we were introduced. More strange, in London 4 of us met up - each coming from different places - and relying on the fact that we would be in the general area. We all found each other - we just knew the person we were looking at was the person we had talked to and shared so much with online.

And what next? I've been offered a job on the team to start training other counsellors to work online from January - and it is SO exciting! This, I believe, really is the future.

Counselling online really does work. It is convenient and accessible for clients, wherever they are in the world - every moment really is an opportunity for change! It allows the counsellor to have a family life. Clients SAY it works - that they have been heard and met with genuine warmth and understanding. When it is used as an extension to existing counselling training and experience it is a truly valuable resource to have, offers CPD and ensures practice remains safe, secure, ethical and effective.

Liane

www.onlinetrainingforcounsellors.co.uk

Assume Goodwill.

Children learn what they live by.

This is the full version of a poem I have had in my purse since my son was born 21 years ago. I believed it then and I certainly, having tried to live by it, believe it now.

Treat children as you would want to be treated and model the behaviour that you want from them.

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn to feel envy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn patience.
If children live with praise, they learn appreciation.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with recognition, they learn it is good to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn generosity.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with fairness, they learn justice.
If children live with kindness and consideration, they learn respect.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

Copyright © 1972 by Dorothy Law Nolte

Welcome to Holland

I was reading something completely different this morning (which I may well put here at some point) but it reminded me of this.

I was given this piece of writing by a friend (and I really wish I could remember who it was) soon after my son was diagnosed with Autism 18 years ago.

At the time it made me cry and gave me hope. For anyone else living with a child with a disability - and also those who now have children who have grown into adults with a disability, so have all that experience - this is for you.

Welcome To Holland

by
Emily Perl Kingsley


I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

* * *©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.