A brief talk about my understanding of psychology and counseling may be useful to everyone, but to state that I am not a professional, here is just a casual chat:
First of all, psychology or psychological counseling should belong to the scientific and philosophical categories, and should not be mystified, let alone religious. Of course, the concept of "philosophy" is not understood by everyone, and the original meaning of the word philosophy is "love of wisdom", not love of mystery or unspeakable and falsified imagination.
Secondly, the role of the psychological counselor is to guide the client to understand and solve the real problem (not necessarily just a psychological problem), which is usually manifested as the client's misunderstanding of past experiences, or restrictions on future wishes, and ignoring the resources he currently has.
In other words, the problem of the person concerned is either suffering from past unfortunate experiences, or worrying about hopes that cannot be realized in the future, or being troubled by not having the resources to achieve hope or get rid of the past. In general, most psychological problems come from these three aspects when excluding physiological lesions.
There are two things to note about past unfortunate experiences:
One is that the so-called own experience is actually selective memory. Everyone chooses to remember only those things they identify with, usually about the limitations of the person concerned or things he thinks are meaningful to remind them to pay attention to later, but actually cause problems. Therefore, as long as beliefs and worldviews change, the choice mode of memory will also change, which can not only change the choice of memory in the present and the future, but even change the memory of the past, but this does not mean that it can change what happened before, but it can change the perception of what happened before.
The second is that the harm caused by past experiences does not necessarily come directly from the case itself, there are biological scientific arguments that can be derived from genetics, that is, family trauma, and it is said that there are cases that show that trauma that even the case itself does not know can be transmitted from generation to generation. But I have a different opinion on this, I think that spiritual problems, exploring past experiences or attributing certain reasons, can not be proved or falsified. But finding a cause makes sense to the "person", like selective memory, as long as the person himself believes that this is the cause of his own suffering, then this reason may become the key to opening the current knot.
Regarding the hope that cannot be realized, there are many depressions and even suicides, some for the economy, some for love, some for discrimination, oppression or lack of attention, in short, the loss of hope or deep worry in the future, but in fact the future has not yet come, these predictions are only the imagination of the parties themselves.
Regarding the lack of resources, it is the belief that they lack the corresponding resources, so they cannot get rid of the past or reach the future, which causes pain and anxiety. This is a lack of awareness of the resources you can control, and greed for things you can't control. Generally speaking, the main cause is ignorance, neither knowing what they have nor where to find what they need, so that confusion leads to loss or mania, or thinking that resources that do not belong to them are controllable, but in the end they will feel lost because they are uncontrollable, which leads to low self-esteem or depression.
The so-called two-way barrier is inseparable from this ignorance, although it is not limited to this. This situation is more difficult to solve, because ignorance means a lack of ability to recognize understanding, which will lead to disbelief, distrust of external advice and support, so it takes a lot of time to build a sense of affinity.
If this problem happens to us, it can be solved in a second, that is, by adopting the Stoic philosophy of believing that we have all the resources we can control, such as: our view of things; Our behavior driven; Our willingness to get things, our willingness to avoid things, and so on are all things that we decide and can do. However, this is easier said than done, to believe in a thing, in addition to courage also requires wisdom, you must be able to clearly understand what you believe, otherwise believing without understanding is difficult to trigger practical actions. This is the purpose of the counselor, who allows the client to discover, understand, and establish ideas that they never knew but actually worked, and thus translate them into action.
The psychological problems in the above three aspects will in most cases be repeatedly stimulated in the interaction of the relationship, and because the parties cannot reflect on the inside, and are accustomed to blaming the outside, the problem falls into an endless cycle.
Therefore, relationship problems are often the focus of psychological counseling, but if the psychological counselor guides the party to focus on the processing of the relationship, rather than the inner concept, it is usually a symptomatic but not a cure, because the object of the relationship is uncontrollable, or the party takes strong measures or certain language methods to try to control the relationship, which will lead to stiffness and even conflict in the relationship.
I don't understand that some so-called masters always make a fuss about relationships, always guide the parties to deal with interpersonal problems, rather than adjusting the parties' own inner understanding problems, what do they think? Wanting to improve one's inner psychological problems by changing or controlling relationships is tantamount to asking for fish, because when a person wants to adjust the relationship, he is actually trying to change others or change others' perceptions of themselves, but if you don't change yourself, this can't be done. However, this argument will be fairly universally agreed, because most people believe that if they feel bad, of course, it is not their own problem, but the problem of others related to them.
Finally, let's talk about the solution, in fact, as a psychological counselor, you must first solve your own psychological problems in order to help more people. Because the solution is the same, but the specific implementation method is different.
For self-psychological problems, adjust them in four steps:
1. Clear problems: psychological problems are usually manifested as a certain bad feeling that recurses.
2. Find the cause: find the cause of this feeling, usually one or more of the three aspects mentioned above;
It should be noted that you yourself have to believe in this reason, otherwise there will be no adjustment effect. So sometimes it is difficult for the counselor to adjust himself, because he does not believe in the reason he found, or he will fall into the search for the reason, constantly looking for but not believing in any of them. In this case, the counselor needs another counselor to adjust his or her mind, or he can study the Dharma and visualize beyond the level or perspective of this observer.
3, change the view: change the view refers to the above three aspects, let yourself feel bad reasons for the view, the so-called "view" is a pronoun, it can be a point of view, can also be a belief, or a judgment, or a position, in short, you have to identify it first, and then try to change. In short, each school of psychology and philosophy has its own principles, creeds, or logical frameworks, which can be used as tools to change their views.
4, action feedback: when our own views change, we can take different actions based on these views, if the views change but the actions do not change, it can only mean that our views have not changed, or we want to change the mood is not so urgent. The meaning of changing actions is that it can cause feedback to obtain new feelings, and if negative feelings can be transformed into positive feelings, then our change is effective, otherwise we need to further adjust our own perception and way of acting.
The above are the four steps of adjusting self-psychology, used to consult with others, in fact, it is the same, but some links will be added, and some guiding language will be used, which will not be widely said here.
Even if you know all of the above, you can't adjust yourself, let alone serve others, because you still lack relevant knowledge and training.
For example, someone said, "I feel left out."
Excuse me, is this sentence his feeling, or his opinion? Or is it his observation? Or is it his comment? When you hear this sentence, how can you judge it, and what strategies and language will be used to guide it?
These questions are questions that a qualified counselor can identify in a split second and respond immediately, of course, in a face-to-face situation, because the information of body language is much greater than the verbal expression, but this ability is unheard of for an ordinary person.
Therefore, there is a field or energy or structure, or some incomprehensible adjectives to describe this working state of the consultant, after all, just by chatting instead of taking medicine, can make a person change, even a change in the heart, which is indeed mysterious.
