Friends are friendly, I am Miao Baoping, a psychological counselor, and the name of the network is like dust.
Today we continue to read Dr. Yue Xiaodong's book "The Feeling of Ascending to Heaven: I Did Psychological Counseling at Harvard University": "Chapter 2 I have a deep guilt for my sister".
body:
The dispute with the supervisor plunged me into an unprecedented confusion.
For days, the fierce debate with the supervisor has been echoing in my ears. Shouldn't I help Monica cherish the opportunity to study at Harvard? Am I doing this to help Monica? Am I really imposing it?
I felt that there was a clear cultural difference between my and my supervisor's concept of counseling.
Unexpectedly, Monica suddenly called me three days later and said she wanted to see me the next day. I promised her, wondering why she suddenly wanted to come to see me again.
The next day, she came to my office on time. After she sat down, she apologized to me for being too busy the other day and didn't call me back, and said that she had decided to stay at Harvard at all costs and finish her studies here.
If she had spoken to me a few days earlier, I would have been overjoyed by her decision. But thinking about the argument with the supervisor four days ago, I asked her doubtfully, "Is this what you really think?"
"Yes." She replied with a sincere face.
"Then why did you come to tell me in two weeks?" I asked.
Not wanting to ask this question, Monica was silent for half a day.
After a while, Monica told me that she had come to see me today on instructions from her father. Because when he learned that Monica was still determined to transfer from Harvard, he rushed from New York State to Boston to persuade her. During the conversation, he learned that I had made a careful study plan for Monica, expressed great appreciation, and asked her to actively cooperate with my plan.........
At this point, I understood that the supervisor's estimation was not wrong. It is true that staying at Harvard was not Monica's intention, but the pressure of the family, otherwise she would not have been so wronged.
I tried to get Monica to tell the real reason why she didn't want to stay at Harvard, but she always said that she didn't want to disappoint her parents anymore.
What did Monica want to leave Harvard for? I was puzzled.
*****
I reported the meeting with Monica to the supervisor. After listening, he asked me, "Well, what do you think you should do now?"
"Encourage her to speak more from her heart and stop putting any pressure on her." I replied.
"Yes," said the supervisor, nodding vigorously, "don't rush to talk to her about Harvard to stay in the question, but talk more about her upbringing, so that she can naturally make the next choice, rather than force her." She needs to mature through this matter and enhance her autonomy. ”
In addition, the supervisor reminded me to discuss with Monica more about her relationship with her twin sister Caroline, which could be an important clue.
In this way, I resumed my regular meetings with Monica, but I no longer asked her to carry out the same study plan that I had previously set. Following the supervisor's reminder, we talked a lot about Monica's upbringing and her relationship with Caroline, and found a series of extremely important clues.
It turned out that Monica and Caroline, the twin sisters, had been active together from childhood to adulthood. Unfortunately, Caroline was in a traffic accident at the age of fourteen, injuring her vertebrae and confining herself to wheelchairs ever since. Since then, Monica has tried to make up lessons for her sister every day to make her happy.
Although Caroline later returned to school, her academic performance could no longer be as good as before. After graduating from high school, she attended only one nearby community college. Monica has been deeply disturbed by this.
Because Monica was supposed to be the victim of that traffic accident.
Here's how it went:
Monica had a new boyfriend in her third year of junior high school and liked him very much. One day, the boy came to Monica on a motorcycle and said that he was going to take her out to a movie at night, and Monica immediately agreed to him.
However, in the evening, Monica suddenly felt unwell, a little did not want to go, but was afraid of sweeping the boy's happiness, and felt embarrassed. Thinking about it, she decided to ask her sister to go to the appointment on her behalf, anyway, the two sisters used to play this alternative trick. The sister was reluctant at first, but could not withstand Monica's pleading and agreed to her.
No, the boy was driving illegally on the road, colliding with another car, and Caroline was thrown out, with a spinal injury and a lifelong disability.
Monica felt deeply guilty about the incident, believing that she had harmed her sister for the rest of her life. She felt that she owed her sister a lifetime of love.
Monica wanted to be with her sister forever, never separated for the rest of her life.
Monica couldn't cry when she told me about this painful experience.
What was even more unbearable for her was that she could not see that her life was so brilliant, while her sister's life was so bleak. She could not forgive her selfishness that day, and she also deeply hated herself for choosing a friend carelessly, which made her sister fall into bad luck. She would rather have her own lifelong disability and let her sister take care of herself than face the current situation.
In short, Monica couldn't get rid of the guilt that tormented her.
Listening to these words, I realized that I did hear too little at the beginning. Without understanding such an important situation, how can it help Monica decide where her life is going?
At the same time, I began to admire the supervisor's keen observation. It seems that Monica's guilt about her sister is the underlying reason for her learning emotions and plans to transfer from Harvard. And her extensive participation in various social activities is actually to divert her inner pain, or to find an excuse for transferring from Harvard....
It dawned on me. I felt as if I had stitched out a patchwork pattern. At the same time, I'm ashamed of my initial simplicity. I used my own life experience and wishes to speculate on Monica's psychology, and I did not fully explore the mystery behind the appearance, of course, I would not resonate with her thoughts.
I felt how silly I was acting.
unscramble:
Reading the content of this chapter, I am reminded of a poem by the Song Dynasty poet Lu You in "Touring Shanxi Village": "The mountains and rivers are doubtful and there is no way, and the willows are dark and the flowers are bright and another village." It shows the poet's joy in describing the wandering feeling of being lost and changing shapes and seeing new scenes in the landscape, and expresses the unique thinking and spirit of Lu You - in the face of adversity, it often contains infinite hope, no matter how difficult the road ahead is, as long as you have firm faith and the courage to open up, life can be "desperate", and a new realm full of light and hope appears, which is the philosophy of life that people can understand from it.
As the author puts it, when he thought his client, Monica, had given up the consultation, Monica came back and continued to be his client, wasn't that the author's hope after the setback? Hope is like a bright light in the night, which makes us full of expectations for moving forward.
In fact, we can vaguely see from Monica's body that when the emotional self is lost and calms down, she will see the self-exposure and self-experience of the psychological counselor, which is still inspiring and touching to her. Because after meeting with her father, she can also change to another counselor to awaken herself from the perspective of another person. But she still came to the author, indicating that the author's previous work was not completely a failure.
As the saying goes, "eat a long and wise", the author is not immersed in the joy of the client returning to consult, but from there to fall and get up from there, the reflection on the self prompts him to look at the problem, more calm and alert, tend to mature, this is where we need to learn from and improve in life and work.
"From now on, if you are idle and ride the moon, you will knock on the door at night with your staff." The plot turns three times in a wave, so let's look forward to the consultation process to be more exciting!
October 22, 2021 #Counselor said #