This week we talked about the different helping roles in agencies, and we explored the limitations of counselling in relation to a client’s expectations.
I wasn’t initially going to write anything in my reflective diary this week as I don’t feel we covered anything I had any deep or significant reflections about, but I’m going to explore my thoughts anyway, see what comes out.
Writing the list of vulnerable groups was eye-opening. It was also a little tough in places. I think it’s great that we can support our vulnerable people in this country. We’ve moved past fighting between ourselves (for the most part, anyway) and created a peaceful environment in which we can practise compassion and allow anyone, regardless of mental capacity, physical disability or social status to have a decent standard of living, and not live in fear of death due to violence, starvation or living in harsh outdoor conditions. Well, most people. Some slip through the net, so to speak. We do our best. Realistically, I understand, we can’t save everyone.
I’ve recently started driving lessons. It has taken me a long time to build up the courage to finally start, for a variety of reasons. My wife, on the other hand, has been driving for twenty-odd years, and I think she may take the learning process for granted. She asked me how my lessons were going, and I did tell her a little, but she then proceeded to tell me all about how, on her second lesson, she was driving down the motorway at 60 miles an hour, and how great her instructor was, and how they went to this car park to practise parking, and how the instructor gave her a free lesson one day because she spent the entire lesson just driving to pick the next person up as it was such a long way away, and I did not feel listened to at all.
It illustrated to me how not listening with empathy can sour someone’s experience of being listened to. It is a common saying that when you go into a shop and a member of staff is rude, that you “only remember the bad service”. This is similar. I only wanted to tell her how my driving lessons were going.
