I was late for class this week.
I phoned for a taxi at twenty past 5, to come to the colleague entrance at work. I got a text message not long after saying it had arrived, but I could not see it anywhere. I phoned the taxi company but alas, it had gone to the wrong Asda. Time was pressing on and I was getting anxious, and wet, as it was raining. I phoned again, I figured I would still be on time if it turned up soon – it did not turn up at all. All while I was waiting I was considering not turning up for my course. I was considering going home and calling it quits. On one hand I felt that I would rather stop the course entirely than turn up late, but on the other I felt silly for feeling that way and knew that my tutor would understand and be forgiving about my being late.
I phoned for a taxi a third time and eventually one arrived at ten past six, which was ten minutes after the class had started. I arrived at half past six, and thankfully, my tutor was very understanding. She quickly got me back up to speed; we had some banter about how she recognises me as “The Man with the Beard”, and I quickly relaxed into the flow of the lesson.
We did some role-play today, which I found quite enjoyable. I felt it was quite tricky to use only open questions, it felt quite unnatural from the normal way of having a conversation with someone, but then again, you are not having a “normal” conversation with someone. I felt myself wanting to ask “why” questions to flesh out my knowledge of the situation, and I can see that learning to adapt the principles and functions of “why” questions into questions beginning with “how”, “what”, “where” or “when” is the way to go, but I found it tricky in this particular role-play, as my mind went blank, almost as if I was trying too much, too soon, all at once maybe? I’m sure it will come to me as time goes on and we learn more.
I did slip in a few reflective statements in there when I was having a go as the counsellor, which I found more natural and much easier than asking open questions. They did cause my client to open up further, which is the desired effect, so that is good. When the conversation hit a wall I also tried a little bit of summarising, in that I repeated the key points we had discussed so far and asked her if that was all correct. My client confirmed and then we ended the roleplay.
Our tutor told us that we could either make up a dilemma when we are the client in a roleplay, or we could use real problems from our past, but only as long as they have been resolved. It is interesting that she asked us to not use unresolved problems from our past and I totally understand why – I imagine that a counselling student asking another counselling student about a very raw, current and ongoing problem in such an environment could potentially go very wrong.
I didn’t make a joke at the end of this lesson when our tutor was asking how everyone was feeling in one word, and I didn’t feel the need to use my favourite defence mechanism. I felt confident, and that was the word I chose.
