Death of the Counsellor: Facilitating SelfRepair

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• This presentation will
• Review our current understanding of the Journey
  of Loss
• Consider the traditional role of the counsellor
• Examine the psychodynamics of bereavement
  counselling through the transactional analysis
  model
• Suggest a re-orientation for counsellors and
  therapists that more accurately supports our work
  as facilitators of self-repair

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Grief
• Occurs as a result of Loss of Attachment
• Attachments may be Tangible or Intangible
• Is about Change
• Is Stressful
• Affects us at all levels of our being

Physical
Emotional
Mental
Spiritual
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Loss as a Journey

Loss
Reinvestment
Protest
Sadness
Reorganization
Depression
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Grief Tasks
• To Accept the Reality of the Loss
• To Experience the Pain of Grief
• To Adjust to an Environment in which the Deceased
  is Missing
• To Withdraw Emotional Energy and Reinvest

- William Worden
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Accepted Wisdom
• Present loss resurrects former losses for the
  mourner
• Therese Rando

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair
Sudden Temporary Upsurges of Grief (STUGs) - Rando
10 Years
5 Years
1 Year
6 Months
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• 3 Essential Questions in Grief
• Who Am I Now?
• Who Have I Been?
• Who am I Becoming?

Why do present losses resurrect former
losses? What is going on when losses from 20
years prior resurface with the same
intensity? Why does our grief take us to
reflecting on our past? Is it simply that we need
to identify learned response patterns? What
other psychological mechanisms may be at play
here?
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• The Emotional Body
• Working with loss requires attending to our
  emotional responses
• Emotions exist like bubbles of feelings in our
  bodies
• They naturally want to emerge and be expressed
• Emotions are layered. Suppressing one means that
  others (including the ones we want) are not able
  to move through fully
• We can choose to recognise and allow our feelings
  and lead fuller, healthier lives
• We can choose to ignore them
• What factors influence our choices?

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair
Development of the Self-Concept
Disapproval/ Punishment
Approval/ Rewards
Creativity
We are conditioned To grow in the direction
Where we experience Reward
Responses to a childs Self-Expression
inform The Self-concept
Needs
Desires
Wants
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair
Self and Shadow
Me
Not Me
Brave Considerate Independent Happy Obeying Good
Boy/Girl Loved
Scared Selfish Needy Sad Rebel Ashamed Unloved
Unacceptable Aspects of Self become Exiled as we
Grow
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Early lessons about the acceptability of powerful
  emotional responses determine our later
  self-acceptance and ease of emotional expression
• When unsupported in this process a child may
  determine their responses as wrong
• This results in a lifelong search for approval
  outside of the Self (Exterior Locus of Control)
• It is the Child Ego State that needs to be the
  focus of our interventions, not the loss object

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Transactional Analysis Ego States

P
P
Legend P Parental Ego State A Adult Ego
State C Child Ego State
A
A
The Transference/ Countertransference Reactions
often elicited In a Grief Counselling Session
occur reciprocally Between Client and
Counsellor as indicated
C
C
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Transactional Analysis Ego States

P
Traditional Bereavement Counselling may
unwittingly reinforce the clients learned
helplessness (from the child ego state) that the
resolution of emotional pain can only come from
an external source (parental substitute)
A
The work of the Bereavement Facilitator Is to
redirect the client to working with the child ego
state from their own parental ego state, thus
promoting self-mastery
C
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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Counsellors Tasks
• To Accept the Reality of Child Ego States and
  Invite their Story
• To Acknowledge the Pain of Fragmentation
• To Support the Adjustment of the clients
  Personal Narrative to include the existence of
  More than One Ego State
• To Facilitate Self-Mastery in Clients

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Counsellors Challenges
• We may like being the expert
• We may not be comfortable with our own separate
  ego states
• We may project our own self-doubt on our clients
• We may discover we have additional personal work
  to do in order to embrace this paradigm

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Understanding Complicated Grief
• Traditionally we consider grief complicated
  when it is
• Delayed
• Absent
• Conflicted
• Chronic

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Revisiting Complicated Grief
• When we acknowledge who is grieving (child ego
  state) we may reframe as follows
• Delayed Delayed (Waiting for relative Safety
  and Understanding)
• Absent - Delayed
• Conflicted Different (and antagonistic) parts
  of Self are engaged in the Process
• Chronic Child ego state carries unresolved
  pain

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Working with Child Ego States
• A Part frozen in Time (exiled) needs to be
  Nurtured in the Present in order to let go of
  Extreme Feelings/Beliefs

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Recognising the Child Ego State
• Big Emotional Responses
• Feeling Little
• Feeling Ashamed, Unlovable, Worthless
• Presenting with childs mannerisms
• Asking permission/apologetic
• Ask How Old do You Feel?
• How long Have You Felt this Way?

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Death of the Counsellor Facilitating Self-Repair

• Working with the Child Ego State
• Inviting Visualize, focus on Feeling, Focus on
  Body Sensation
• Allowing
• Supporting
• Nurturing
• Contracting
• EFT (see www.emofree.com)