counselling 101

I'm not a counsellor. Never have been, but I have counselled people before in a very nonprofessional, fumbling for words kind of way. Most of what I'm going to write here is common sense, personal experience, and what I've learnt from Manifest rally. The rest of it that isn't common sense, personal experience, or what I've learnt from Manifest rally is just nonsense and you would do well to ignore it :)

• the key to bringing someone out of their struggles is to love them out. People aren't stupid (though we all know stupidity comes in varying degrees), most of them can tell when you're being genuine and you really love them, and when you're just putting on a show or doing something out of duty. When you have no idea what to say and the person is sobbing into your shoulder, just tell them honestly that you love them. I guarantee you they'll start crying harder (but a good sort of crying now). It makes a world of difference when you're at rock bottom and someone tells you they love you and they genuinely care and want to be there for you even when they have no clue what they're doing.
• consistently and regularly follow up on them. (This is one of my own ideas). I don't think there's much point in a one-off heart-to-heart then they never hear from you again. It would be a manifestation of your love and heart towards them if you made the effort to call or sms them, even meet up with them in person. I've had too many experiences in my time where I've heard "I want to help you and be there for you." And then I never hear from them again and I'm like, "err...what just happened? Did I do something wrong?" Let me tell you now, it DOES NOT help to start counselling someone then not follow up on it. In fact, it may make things worse because the person may end up feeling like they're not worth helping or loving. It's so important to continue to walk with them until they break through.
• listen carefully to them. Empathise and sympathise with them. Validate their feelings. I've found it can be very comforting just to talk it all out to someone who will just listen and not judge or condemn me. I've also found that from listening you may be able to pick out details that will enable you to better help them. Listening will help you to root out the issues. For example, if you're counselling someone for depression and you notice they talk obsessively about food and what they ate that day, that may be a sign of a developing eating disorder (and eating disorders often accompany clinical depression), which should be addressed sooner rather than later. Another scenario is that by listening closely to someone, you may realise that the problem you're counselling them for isn't the actual problem. Perhaps they just want attention (and that's not a joke). But then why do they want attention - this may have deeper issues that need to be rooted out. Perhaps they were neglected as a kid, and had some overachieving older sibling. Or a needy, bratty, little younger sibling.
  
• ask questions. Of course this needs to be done with sensitivity. Some questions may be in touchy areas or dredge up distressing memories that needn't be brought up at that moment. On the other hand sometimes the person may just need to be confronted in order to get it out. Ask about background, relationships, past experiences that may have contributed to the problem now, what are the triggers, how do they feel about this issue or this person, why do they think they feel/think this way. It's important for the person to come to their own revelation of their feelings. Ask them how they think this problem came about and what they think they should do about it. Prompting them with these questions will get them to be more active in solving the problem. It encourages them to look at things more objectively.
  
• be firmly grounded. There have been a few times where hearing about people's problems makes me upset myself. Therefore, it's important to very stable yourself before you throw yourself into these kind of things. And by stable I don't mean you need to be perfect and without problems, I mean you need to have your own safety net and friends that will encourage you and uplift you. And most importantly you need to be grounded in God.
  
• confidentiality. For my view on this, see the post entitled 'private and confidential'. Confidentiality and trust are of paramount importance. However, some issues may require senior, more professional advice from experienced persons.
  
• make it clear that you are not the solution. Of course you're not the solution, you're the agent for the solution. You're sort of like the channel, in a way. My analogies really suck. My point is, counselling someone tends to lead to a very adhesive emotional attachement. (And for this reason, counselling the opposite gender is strongly discouraged). You become that person's one and only. And that is BAD. They turn to you for everything, they fully depend on you. But you're only human and the smallest mistake you make may crush them. Point them towards God-dependency, not man-dependency. Now I'm not saying that if a girl has a problem and you're a guy then you have to walk away in the opposite direction as fast as you can. That would be mean. Just be careful of the signals that you're sending or that she may be sending and try not to spend alone time with her, invite another girl to come along.
  

I hope this has been helpful. This is definitely not professional advice as I am not a professional in anything, really. If something I've said disagrees with you, think about it, ask someone. Obviously each case is different and something that may work with someone may not work for someone else. But above all, love them.