Stephanie Adams

A member of my counseling listserv started a discussion this week that piqued my interest. She asked, “Why counseling?” I already really like the word “why”. I use it with my clients quite a lot, and although I’m sure it annoys them sometimes, it usually has positive results. “Why” makes you think. “Why” makes you own your decision.

Being a solo practitioner in private practice, sometimes I can identify with the idea that “it’s lonely at the top.” Not that I believe, mind you, that I am at the top of my profession, but in the counselor-client relationship, who needs to be in charge of the session? The counselor. The counselor must also maintain calm even when their own emotions are triggered, either by countertransference or by a client in jeopardy. I work in an office with two LPCs and two other LPC-Interns, but in my office, it’s just little old me.

I have one client who reminds his friends he can’t do anything with them on our appointment days because he’s going to the “crazy doctor’s.” Another woman I see cheerfully asks her husband if he can run by the pharmacy for her because she’s almost out of her “happy pills.” Other clients have come into my office for the first time and “complained” that I didn’t have a fainting couch. Though these words might seem a little flippant to some, I disagree. I think it’s a good thing to have a sense of humor in the counseling office.

I think there is a misunderstanding in the field today on the nature and importance of self-care in a counselor’s career. We pay lip service to the value of counselor self-care; yet it isn’t taught in schools and isn’t accentuated in most major literature. What else are we supposed to infer, but that it isn’t of importance? Unfortunately, many new counselors do assume that, and risk burnout. That’s not good! The ACA provides notable exception to this rule, but by and large, self-care is shamefully under-emphasized. Which means it’s simply up to us to make up the difference.