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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to expect a counsellor to stay awake during a consultation!!!???

32 replies

ohsmellyjelly · 12/03/2007 13:42

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ohsmellyjelly · 13/03/2007 14:29

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Heathcliffscathy · 13/03/2007 17:05

basically, a feeling of heavy sleepiness is a phenomenon that psychotherapy patients can experience when confronted by material that they are very disturbed and anxious about....falling asleep is a way of shutting down...and as such is a good defence against feelings of terror or high anxiety.

when a counsellor experiences that, it can be as a response to some sense in which what is being talked about is 'dangerous' to the client....it is a difficult thing to explain, but it is as if the counsellor is having the reaction 'for' the client...and it gives the counsellor a big clue that whatever is being talked about, however innocuous it may or may not sound...is a big area of anxiety.

Deep trauma is what i'm thinking of, that hasn't been allowed to come to the surface....

I'm not at all saying that is what happened with you, but I'm explaining that it can and does happen. I've experienced it as a client (a huge and heavy feeling of wanting to fall asleep when I knew that i wasn't tired before the session) and as a therapist (I have had a couple of clients that I realy really struggled to stay awake with at certain points in the session...and it was absolutely not because they were boring me...both had been seriously neglected/abused in very early childhood).

I think even if this woman was being just a common or garden git that shouldn't be in her job....taking it to her as a first step is the right one. But i totally understand if you don't feel comfortable with that.

ohsmellyjelly · 13/03/2007 20:16

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Heathcliffscathy · 13/03/2007 20:39

like i said, i seriously doubt that either scenario was the case in a first session....she was probably just a sleep old bint who can't do her job properly!!!

do you know one of my pet gripes is that people are much choosier about hairdressers than counsellors...and if you are going through the nhs you have no choice....

however, there are tons of shit counsellors out there...and not every one is the right 'fit' for a particular client...there should be a 'click' a fit....it should feel that you could have a real relationship with this person...counselling is based on trust...

i wish you so much luck in finding a good one...you deserve one, everyone does.

satinshoes · 13/03/2007 20:39

make a complaint

Lovecat · 13/03/2007 20:47

Dreadful, really dreadful! I'd have given her a poke to wake her up, rude so n' so!

I had a bit of counselling on the NHS last year and it was contracted out to a private therapy centre - the really lovely woman whom I saw said at our very first meeting that if I didn't think she was right for me I could see another person, no questions asked (I had a very bad experience with a scary counsellor who was a Germaine Greer lookalike (which didn't help) a few years previously and was a bit wary of the whole thing). Obviously I don't know the circs of who/where you saw your person, but it might be worth asking if you can get referred to another counsellor rather than just lose your place altogether.

Hope you manage to get something sorted out, I would definitely complain (I complained about Germaine when, apropos of nothing in the middle of me talking about my OH's cancer, she asked if I'd been breastfed or not - wtf???)

Pruni · 13/03/2007 20:57

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