Thursday 20 January 2011

Why I'd be the most hopeless counsellor

Lately I've been beginning to think that I may not be the best person in the world to be a counsellor. Which sucks as my university course is Psychology and Counselling. You see, the main reason is that I hate people. Not in a way that makes me want to stab people or anything, but in a way that I really can't stand the idea of sitting and listening to them whine. Which I know is rich coming from me as that's really all I ever do.

Basically, in counselling you also have to adopt several assumptions, one being that all people are good. Yep that's right, everyone in the entire stinking world is good. So the guy who went on a shooting spree in Cumbria last year, those boys who killed that toddler, and Hitler are all good people are they? That is an assumption that I never have and never will agree with, even if those people didn't do the evil things they did. Call me a cynic and a miserable little girl bitch, but I genuinely do not believe that everyone is a good person. Yes, there are good people in the world, but when you look at how many people are killed, raped, beaten and abused, and when you look at terrorism, you can in no way come to the assumption that EVERYONE is good. Don't get me wrong, I have met some fantastic people in my life who are really good people and deserve all the happiness in the world, but I don't believe that everyone is like that.

Take this for example, last April, my cat, who my mum and I loved very dearly (yes I know, crazy cat ladies) was hit by a car driven by what I can only assume was a dickhead, breaking his jaw and deforming most of his face, resulting in him being fed through a tube and suffering what was clearly horrible pain for a week, until my mum decided she couldn't let him suffer anymore and agreed to have him put down. To some people I know you're probably thinking "it's a cat, get over it" but to me, he was my pet, he was my baby, and he was part of my family. Now I know in this country, if you hit a dog while driving, you must report it, however the same can't be said for cats. But this person did not even have the decency to come clean about what they had done, nor did they pick him up and bring him to us, nor did they apologise for doing what they did. I don't care if this person hit him on purpose or whether it was an accident, a good person would have had the common decency to at least report what they had done, as well as apologise. That person caused my mum and I lot of distress, which lasted for a very long time, and they also cost my mum over £500 in vets' bills, and at the end of it, we didn't even get our Ozzy back. And for that reason, I don't care if they are the nicest person in the world, I don't care if they regularly help charities or pass out food in homeless shelteres, to me, that person will always be considered a bad one. Some may think that's petty and childish, but that's how I feel and that is how I always will feel.

To be a counsellor you also have to empathise with people. Don't get me wrong, if someone came in with a phobia of something silly, I would empathise no matter how silly it was, because I know how they can affect your life. However, what am I supposed to do if someone who was a paedophile walked in to the room? Obviously, counselling isn't usually reccommended for people like that, but what if a client said that they were suddenly feeling 'that way?' I honestly don't think I could empathise with someone like that on any level. As a counsellor you can however tell a client you don't think they'll make progress with you and refer them to someone else, but I wouldn't want to do that if it was someone who I had worked with for a long time and this person had built up so much trust and felt comfortable with me.

At the moment everything is still up in the air about what I want to do when I graduate, but so far, I'm confused. I did really enjoy educational psychology but it's one of the more competative fields and with my vomit phobia, I wouldn't like to be around kids that long in case of bugs etc (I spent 2 weeks at a nursery for my work experience and after the first week I had a bad case of flu and a cough which resulted in me not being able to speak properly for over a month, so I've learned my lesson). If I did become a counsellor, I would prefer mainly to work with those suffering from anxiety disorders and phobias as I have personal experience in both and really do empathise with them - not that I wouldn't empathise with someone experiencing other problems, but it really helps talking to someone who has been through what you're going through in my opinion. Although I would need to remember that I'm helping this person rather than chatting to them about how much anxiety sucks...and if I had someone with a vomit phobia I'd have to re-think how to do exposure therapy for them...

Sorry for the heavy, contraversial blog. Next time will be fluffy kittens and bunnies and hot chocolate and candyfloss.