2.6 Observing One’s Own Physical and Emotional Reactions
When we meet with clients we are often touched by the things they say; their stories can really get under our skin – some we find sickening, others give us goose bumps or warm our hearts. Our language is full of sayings that reveal how involved our entire body can become in such situations. This is true even for counselors who try very hard to remain neutral: We are irritated, happy, bored, distracted. Sometimes, after a good meal, when our eyelids are only half open (and we wonder whether the clients are noticing), or when our attention wanders – suddenly we are wide awake at what is being recounted. Are such circumstances only minor disturbances that any professional counselor and therapist must have under control? Or can we somehow use them for our work?
Emotional reactions (anger, sadness, happiness), physical reactions (fatigue, tension, disquiet) and cognitive reactions (images, thoughts, memories) reflect what has happened and are thus important sources of information. Learning to understand and to use these various types of reactions is part of systemic work.
That, however, requires a large measure of self-awareness. And because we know that our perceptions are not just reflections, but also active constructions on our Table 3: Roles in the family
Role Characteristic Possible contribution to the family system
Hidden quality
Little sunshine Friendly Easily makes contact and is good-humored
Anger, withdrawal
Poster child Competent Makes you proud, satisfies parents’ own need for self-esteem
Misbehavior, hedo-nism
Clown Funny Cheers up, deflects sadness Seriousness, sadness Precocious Responsible Supports parents Shows weaknesses,
needs, being childish Problem child Problematic, ill Diverts from other things,
unites parents in their
Unites the family in their re-jection, assume all negative
part, our own stake becomes even more important. All of which seems to suggest that one should be careful and allow only very distanced and impersonal cognitive components to be employed in one’s therapeutic and counseling work.
Yet our experiences speak a different story: Human beings perceive things holis-tically, and it is our conviction that a conscious exclusion of these inner processes would negatively affect our work. Important channels of information would lie dor-mant. Or, put more radically: Our inner reactions will happen no matter what – there is no avoiding them, whether we consciously introduce them into our plans or not.
We could, as psychoanalytic theory would suggest, even postulate that the denial of these inner processes would carry with it the danger of our introducing them in an unreflected manner into our otherwise rational actions.
Case example: When I am particularly irritated at a client but think this is an unprofessional reaction and thus try to regain my rational composure, I may actually increase the proba-bility that I will insert at least some of my anger into the encounter. Alternatively, I could simply accept my feelings and ask: What is making me angry? Do my feelings have more to do with me and my hectic day in my own family or am I ignoring some important things in the client system that need to be put on the table?
Using these reactions carefully and professionally assumes that one can differen-tiate between the two – and not mix up one’s own experiences and reaction pat-terns with those of the clients (projections). As a counselor I must know what I am reacting to, what has its origin within me, my own familial traditions and my present situation in life. Of course, one cannot be 100% sure of properly assign-ing such an experience; yet, the more consciously I deal with my own reaction tendencies, the better I can use my own feelings and impulses in any particular situation as a valuable source of information.
Case example: In a supervision group with juvenile court counselors the topic is one par-ticular youth who is causing one of the members a great deal of consternation because of his very aggressive behavior. The group is exploring the background and context of the situation in order to better understand his behavior and perhaps to gain some insight into his actions. One colleague, however, remains very quiet. When asked what he is thinking and what is going on inside him, he answers that he just isn’t in a good mood today and can’t concentrate, a private matter. When asked again he says a song has been spooking around in his head the whole time, which he attributes to his bad mood. The supervisor becomes curious about this and asks him what song it is: “I’m so lonely” by The Police, a song with a relatively aggressive rhythm. He apologizes again for not being very attentive.
The colleague who brought up the problematic youth reacts immediately and asks whether that might be a key for the young man in question, whether his behavior might be the result of his loneliness, that his behavior reflects his need for contact with others in order to discharge his built-up anger at his unfulfilled needs. The group now pursues this line of thought, which proves very fertile for understanding the client and planning further inter-ventions. The concerned colleague decided to focus on the concept of “contact” and was largely successful.
Colleagues who have a background in hypnosis are well aware of such processes, since their therapeutic concepts put great emphasis on unconscious patterns of
reaction and communication (see Schmidt, 2010, pp. 198 ff.). The same is true for the concept of “countertransference” in psychoanalysis:
– Feelings and reactions can be indications of unexpressed themes: A sudden flow of sadness can be a harbinger of an important matter or simply point out that the client does not wish to address this theme directly.
– Feelings can reflect process dynamics: Fatigue can indicate that no one present truly wants to work on the matter at hand; energy dissipates, the conversation falters. Carl Whitaker cleverly showed at congresses both in live demonstrations and on video how to address these processes head-on and how to use the dynam-ics initiated in this manner.
– Feelings can describe relationship and behavioral patterns: Anger at the behav-ior of a client may reflect that person’s provocative and disrespectful manner of dealing with relationships.
– Inner reactions can correspond to the attitudes of the client: A sudden feeling of inner tension may mean one is now approaching a difficult and fear-ridden top-ic.
Achieving competence in counseling and therapy by perceiving and employing one’s own somatic and emotional reactions is difficult to do by reading a book.
Guided experience is the best route, so we will leave it at that.