Patience and clients

I feel that, as a counsellor, patience has two important dimensions. My own personal patience and the client’s ability to be patient.

As a client, quite often we have reached the end of our tether. The things that have brought us into counselling have become compelling and overwhelming. We can no longer be patient.

As clients, we are seeking solutions and we feel we need them immediately and that there is no time to pause and consider. Pause whatever we do to get through the day and consider how these actions might not be serving us in the best way. We feel we do not have the luxury of time to consider how to do life better/differently.

I wonder if this inability to pause, being caught up in the turmoil of daily existence, is really just a symptom of the distress we are experiencing. Yes, life gives us all challenges but the necessity for a solution that works quickly is more symptomatic of the problem, I feel.

At some time during this distress, we recognise on some level that we cannot do it ourselves and we reach out for help. Previously we might have seen the Doctor, taken the prescribed meds, done the “generous” time-limited therapy and yet we are still anxious, distressed, dissatisfied and worried.

We might have tried any number of other coping strategies in order to change how we feel. These range from eating, drinking, drugs, sex, emotionally clinging to others, self-help books and gurus, the list goes on. Only to realise we have not been able to change how we feel.

I hear different versions of this so often with clients and I feel saddened that their search for a solution has not been successful. Successful yet!

So we find ourselves in the therapy session with a counsellor. Perhaps not for the first time, and it is not unusual to be experiencing feelings of shame, embarrassment, fear, vulnerability as well as a whole host of other feelings. Please do not be put off by these feelings. They are experienced by many people who are coming into counselling. They are part of your journey and by facing them you can find a pathway to a long-lasting solution to what is troubling you.

Earlier I mentioned patience for the counsellor. So what do I mean by that? Well, it could be argued that being a counsellor is an ideal place to hear an endless list of other people's worries and woes. But as a counsellor, I realised that would be the case and went into being a counsellor willingly.

In order to be able to cope with this litany of woe, I received good training and practise to ensure I cope with this. I am careful not to overload myself, I know my capacity. I take steps to ensure I can process and decompress the issues my working day brings. This involves a variety of things such as cycling, fresh air and sunshine, and talking to non-counsellor friends - yes I do have some! I take time to read and to just be.

With a large percentage of my clients I am able to see them make progress, I see them finding solutions that work for them. I see them moving towards a more satisfying and fulfilling way of living. A way of living in which they can deal effectively with the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. This is a very good way to experience the benefits of my own patience.

Seeing this happen and knowing that each and every client has the potential to achieve this more than makes up for any fleeting feelings of impatience. Don't get me wrong - I want all my clients to achieve this and to achieve it yesterday, patience Steve, but I realise that what is needed takes time. We did not come to want/need therapy overnight so it is not unreasonable for the counselling to take time.

Being human I do get impatient, I am not a saint. The dawdling driver, the slow person in front of me in a queue, the washing machine that seems as if it is going on forever or maybe the drunken person who is telling me the same thing for the umpteenth time.

Sometimes a client who I feel is endlessly recycling the problems that distress them stretches my patience. With clients such as this, and there have been a few, I am able to use the skills I have learned to be able to bring them into the session. Gently I will ask if they are aware of this way of being, how it serves them or maybe what they would like to be different. We can explore what that might look like for them and what they feel able to do in order to achieve it.

So what are the rewards of patience? It certainly feels as if my resilience is developing. It provides clients with an increasing ability to take a step back and thus be able to consider. It enables us both to be better able to consider what the solutions might be. Patience begets patience I feel.

When I am able to patiently listen to another person it relieves some of the self-importance, the burden of self. By being patient I somehow receive patience from others in my life - goodness knows I can try the patience of a saint! For me patience brings an easing of the pressure to act quickly, my better decisions are not often made in haste.

What can better patience bring for the client? I have seen it bring a deeper acceptance of what is. I have seen clients flourish when they get the benefits of being patient with others' shortcomings. Clients can tone down that feeling of exasperation when they engage with others who have a different pace. Clients find themselves better able to consider the circumstances and incidents in their lives. This affords them an opportunity to respond rather than react. In my experience, as a flawed human being, my first reaction is rarely the best reaction. More often than not my considered response serves me better.