The Other

That's the title of a short paper I had to write last week.  The topic was to describe a situation in which I had felt like the "other," and a situation where I had made someone else the outsider.  In both cases I was to only spend a sentence or two describing the situation, and the rest of the paper elaborating on my feelings.  It wasn't much fun to write, especially the time(s) I've made someone else the outsider.

In our small group study we are working our way through Matthew, and yesterday evening we talked about the stories in Chapter 8 in which Jesus heals the leper by reaching out to him and touching him.  "I do choose," he says, when the leper says that his healing is Jesus' choice.  The question in our book (Three Months with Matthew, by Justo Gonzalez) asked who were the lepers in our lives.  Of course, this is exactly the same question I'd been asked in my class--who had I treated as a leper?

It is interesting to see how the question is treated in a secular environment, compared with how my faith compels me to act.  As a client-centered counselor, I need to be empathic and accepting of my client, although I don't necessarily have to accept his or her actions.  The funny thing is that this would be really hard to do unless I had Jesus' example to follow.  It will be hard enough to summon a font of empathy when I see clients; it seems like the source of empathy and humility comes from God, and recognizing that fact keeps me out of the center of the relationship.  It makes room for me to help someone else, even if we never explicitly talk about God's role in our relationship.

I've also been thinking about that other paper that I've researched this weekend, about conservative Christians as a culture and what their norms are.  One group of outsiders there, lepers as it were, is women who are victims of domestic violence.  There is incredible pressure to submit to husbands who don't necessarily see the admonition to love their wives "as Christ loved the church" which immediately follows the infamous submission statement in Ephesians. These women are shunned within their church communities when they try to protect themselves and their children, and they're misunderstood by counselors who don't have a background in understanding and respecting their conservative beliefs .  Thankfully there are a growing number of organizations that understand those beliefs and also can work within that culture, and they are reaching out to these women and families.  The result is a lot of healing, whether it's within or outside of the marriage.  Both can happen and be supported.  To me, reading this story about Jesus and the leper has helped me to frame the counseling profession a little better.  It's a lot of food for thought.

Another paper

After my (very exciting) blogging yesterday, I've got to work on a paper.  My topic is interesting so it's not so hard getting away from the depressing news.  

It's a new group project...different people, different class.  THAT class, Social/Cultural Issues.  We are presenting on religion and spirituality.  Specifically I ended up with Christianity, which is good, I guess.  It feels a little like I'm trying to explain myself to the class.

However.  I've run across a bunch of research about perceptions, specifically Christians' perspective of their counselors, and how that affects their counselor-client relationship.  I know the book Unprotected, which came out a couple of years ago, discussed the disparity in religiosity between psychologists and the general public, and the effect that has on treatment. For way too long the view has been to treat the religious belief as a pathological problem, rather than as a value to be respected like most others.  It looks like the view is shifting, which is one of the benefits I can see in the multicultural approach to counseling.

So that's what I'll be doing tonight, rather than looking at Drudge or my own comments.  Have a great evening!

Random thoughts for Friday

A rainy Friday, again.  But we need the rain so much, and it makes it kind of cozy in my kitchen with a second cup of coffee and DD5 (birthday last week) playing with her Barbies over there on the floor.  An ideal time to tie up some loose ends...

When the financial crisis started in earnest, back in September, I wrote a post about McCain suspending his campaign and heading back to Washington.  I was glad he did it, but have been pretty quiet since then.  Truth is, I'm disappointed.  He went back and didn't really DO anything.  It was ineffectual.  I will continue to say that any solution that includes the guilty parties (Dodd, Franks, and let's extend that to Pelosi, Waters and Reid) is no solution to me. And the bailouts seem to continue.  Disturbing.

Closer to home, we can problem-solve in my skills class! Me--the advice-giver--I'm having a hard time with this.  For the last two months we could only reflect and ask open-ended questions.  The shift to problem-solving (admittedly, not the same as advice-giving) is tough.  I find myself tongue-tied part of the time in my interviews.  Practice again this weekend, with another twenty-minute tape.

And finally, the redecorating (here) which started so long ago is coming to an end.  The drapes are being delivered and installed today.  I mentioned that I like to sew, but NOT for my house! So those are arriving and things will be complete. Sort of.  I could use a couple of new lamps, something for the hearth...it never ends, does it?

We are headed to the lake for a beautiful fall weekend.  The rain should be over by this evening and then we'll sit outside and grill some steaks. And then back home on Sunday for all of our obligations. What a blessing to have a haven to escape to once in a while. Best wishes for your October weekend!

Field Trip

As part of my ethics class we went to visit a practitioner in our area of choice. For me, that meant joining a bunch of classmates to visit a marriage and family therapist.  She was so generous with her time and absolutely gracious in sharing as much information as she could with us.  Students can ask some pretty nosy questions, but she was open with her answers of how she came to be a counselor and her educational path.

The most important thing I heard her say was regarding play therapy.  She hadn't been too excited to work with kids--she was more interested in working with the family unit and the parents.  And then she started playing with her first pint-sized client.  "What an honor, an absolute privilege, to be invited into her world." 

I sat there and thought of my little guys at home. I'm not the best about getting down on the floor and playing Barbies and I am terrible at Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii.  But she was right--it IS an honor to be invited into their world. I've resolved to accept their invitations a little more often and to prize the time we spend together on their level.  Another change, another something to be aware of...

Therapy and the Economy

Hmmm. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this article on their front page today, about how many people are seeking therapy in light of all economic turmoil these days.  I had wondered if this might happen, even in an anecdotal fashion. 

I know things had gotten too high, but I really worry about people like my parents and my in-laws, both of whom are retired and counting on stocks and pensions to pay out.  They did everything "right," working hard and saving their money, planning for the future.  Responsible people, the kind of people who form the backbone of the economy. And now their money, or a lot of it, has evaporated, simply disappeared with absolutely no trace. They're left wondering what else will happen, how things will ever improve.  I wonder the same thing.

I think, for my part, these hard economic times would be easier to take if it seemed like the parties who created this mess were going to be held responsible in any way. As it is, the heads of Fannie and Freddie, Lehman and Bear Stearns, Wachovia, WaMu, and AIG, their compatriots in Congress and the SEC, none of them will lose anything.  And that is not right. I get that life isn't fair, but this is also not just, and seems to go against the very Rule of Law that was always held so sacred when I took American History.  

Freakonomics wrote about this a few days ago, and there is a lot to their idea:  People are willing to lose a little themselves if they know that those who caused so many problems will be punished.  They aren't willing to accept minimal losses if it means the perpetrators get off scot-free. If McCain would just take a look at this, to get a handle on the anger that is out here in elector-land, and come up with a plan that concentrates on making the perps pay (even with their time in jail), I know it would help him.

And then we can all line up for anger-management therapy.  But AFTER the bad guys pay.

Midterm Fatigue

School was wearing me out.  It's not the constant reading or the papers...truly, the workload has not been terribly heavy.  But I have been thinking about things, and even my thought processes are different.  My earlier post about Madama Butterfly is a great example of how my social/cultural class has affected my thinking.  Two days after the opera DH and I went to a Falcons game--it was the one where the guy kicked a field goal with one second left and made it!! Very exciting.  But I spent half my time kind of looking around at the crowd and thinking about how different this group was than the opera group, and why, and did it matter, and what did I think about that. To top it off, there was a Hindu festival going on in Centennial Olympic Park before the game.  If we hadn't been at the game with (Chinese) friends who have ABSOLUTELY no interest and think I've lost my mind, DH and I would have stopped and checked that out, too. (DH is a super-good sport about his crazy wife!)

Even when I'm just talking to someone, there's this constant little voice:  "Ooh! Closed question! Focus on the positive! Empathy! I need Empathy! How's that body language? Are you mirroring? Don't forget to reflect--but go for the feelings! Get off the content! Move to feelings, or even values! Where is the  meaning? WHERE IS THE MEANING?" Good Lord, it's like I have my own personal film director constantly after me to make a freaking blockbuster.  It ain't happening. Or, not quickly enough to make this nag go away.

One of the problems with all of this is that I feel really anxious a lot of the time...I feel like I'm always getting caught doing something wrong (that stupid director again).  In some ways this has been like opening a Pandora's box of ideas in my own head, and now I'll never be able to silence it.

I know (somewhere) that this is really temporary--at least I hope so.  Until then, I've got to figure out a way to accept this, take it maybe as encouragement and not nagging. In the long run it will produce some changes that will make me a better counselor and maybe even a better wife and parent. It's just that parts of this road are bumpier than I'd anticipated, and so early in the journey!

Working on my skills

So one of my classes is counseling skills.  Our assignment this weekend?  Practice listening and asking open-ended questions, you know, "how" and "what."  I think our prof envisions:

"How did it feel when you did that?"

"What would succeeding look like to you?"

Unfortunately I already ask a lot of how and what questions, but around here they sound more like:

"How could you DO that??!!"

"WHAT were you thinking??!!"

Maybe I just need to drop the exclamation points.