Ray McKinnis

Counseling is a powerful treatment for most ‘mental’ conditions: depression, neurosis, anxiety, addictions, defiant personalities, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, psychosis—in fact most dysfunctional conditions the DSM IV identifies.

Richard Turner is arguably one of the best card magicians in the world. His skills with cards amaze even the best of other magicians. Hand him a deck of cards and he can immediately tell you how many cards are in the deck. Take the deck, take a card from the deck, look at it, return the card to the deck and give the deck back. He shuffles the deck with one hand and your card appears on top! Amazing enough in itself. But he is blind! He does all his tricks by feel! He became interested in magic at the age of 8 but then his retina began deteriorating and he lost his sight over the next few years but not his intense desire to be a magician—it is reported that he even sleeps with his cards.

I know of no more difficult occupational challenge than that facing a counselor as he or she moves from their formal education into doing counseling. A physician can learn from other physicians how to set the broken leg so that the body’s systems will mend it. Then that physician can use that skill in his or her practice.

We counselors have an almost impossible challenge: on the one hand, if we come to a counseling session with a particular diagnosis or theory or plan, we are likely to be blind to what does not fit that diagnosis or plan; on the other hand, if we come completely ‘open’ we are likely to miss patterns that give clues to understanding our client’s problems.