Interview with a Counsellor(s)

So as asked I took the time to interview my two friends, one who is an MD and his partner a psychologist (yes a power couple - very A list!) about how they treat people in the respective fields and what mentally goes through their heads when they do "counsel" others. Because this is a blog on a public space I will keep their names out of this report in order to respect their privacy.

The M.D.
I have seen the M.D. in action and the way he interacts with his patients harkens back to a time when sometimes the only thing a Doctor could do is give comfort to another. Since medicine is a tactile as well as oratory profession the M.D. tends to place a hand gently upon someone when he feels they are about to open up. He leans in and makes eye contact. He will often repeat or reiterate what the patient has just said. The end result is that the patient often feels a greater confidence in the M.D. This pattern of listening, while very much the model of what counselling should be, makes a Doctor do his job efficiently, it is the touch that adds something special. According to Jill Bolte-Taylor's book, My Stroke of Insight, a compassionate touch can re-affirm trust between one person and another because it involves right-brained thinking and intuition to evoke a sense of bonding between two people. In the case of Jill Bolte-Taylor a kind touch of the toe or a hand upon one's arm was the key to allowing Jill's right brain to come to trust that individual and as a result earning her compliance. Further support to this concept comes from a psychological experiment (the source of which I can no longer remember or find adequately) where people were asked to judge the mood of a librarian after borrowing library books. The librarian was neutral in all verbal dealings, the only difference in behaviour between the two comparitive books was that some subjects were touched by the librarian in the process of issuing books, while the other treatment group had no bodily contact. After analyzing the response of the subjects, the group that had been touched had a significantly greater positive response in the librarian's mood than those who were not touched. The M.D. acknowledges that he is consciously using the touch technique as a mechanism to evoke trust in people who are frightened, or need to feel supported. He also notes that he can sense when others do not like to be touched as part of the physical examination and as a result he opts for a more verbal approach to those patients.

The Psychologist:

The psychologist works within the mental realm alone, and as such has learned to have a certain detachment from his patients. While the Psychologist has learned the similar techniques as the M.D. in terms of making eye contact and repeating statements made by clients in order to reaffirm their position, the Psychologist has also developed alternative techniques that help in dealing with his clients, most of whom are suicidal teenagers. The psychologist has learned to become extremely grounded, and as a practicing Buddhist he finds that meditation and reflection are useful tools to help him prepare for counselling sessions. When he is able to encourage kids to come out of their shell, he must be ready at a moments notice to become very present into the situation because a suicidal child may set off at any moment by the least distraction, and the child will then retreat back into the shell and have no trust in the psychologist. The second technique is not to show strong emotion around the clients. The Psychologist must keep a presence of calm no matter what the client is doing at that moment. Only by passive non-reaction to whatever the client throws out there can the Psychologist maintain a strong presence in the room. When I commented that what he was describing sounded like the Dog Whisperer, he replied that it was basically the same thing for humans. Adolescents need a strong figure in which to follow, and only by exerting a calm demeanor in the face of chaos can he instill some calm in his clients. Once the calm is established and the teens are no longer susceptible to being swept away by their thoughts and emotions can he then teach his clients that they are not their thoughts, and how to be aware of their thoughts and feelings (this is a new dialectic approach for dealing with suicidal teens that involves an eastern-influenced philosophy of separating the self from the thoughts of the self).

While both the MD and the Psychologist use many of the same principles, including active listening, it is the difference in their particular domains that allows for different methods to be utilized. While the medical profession uses physical touch to carry out examinations, the MD uses touch in order to instill a sense of confidence and compassion in his dealings with his patients. The Psychologist cannot use touch in the same manner, especially when dealing with adolescents. In his case, a mental calm, awareness, and a solid grounding is required to project an image the he is open and available and a level of calm that allows his clients to sense that he is the Alpha in the relationship and will calmly guide them to where they need to be.