CoAs As Counseling Professionals

Prepare you to become a professionals counselor,

CoAs make fine counseling professionals. Indeed many CoAs, as we have seen, are involved in the field. This discussion does not relate to inadequacy on their part but rather the pitfalls many experience at work as counselors. It relates to their self-feelings and how they get in the way of feeling good about the job that they do.

Children of alcoholics have very well developed gut responses. This is a survival skill they learn as children. Words are not as meaningful to them as they are to other people. They can get their clues not only from the words but from a variety of other sources. They are able to gain a sense of what their client is feeling and where their client is at without going into length descriptions which very often get in the way of knowing what is really going on. Since these gut reactions are so basic as to be almost instinctual, it is difficult to even explain how you know. Counseling is one area where identification with childhood trauma can add to one’s expertise — unfortunate, but true.

Children of Alcoholics Who Are Professionals Very Often See Themselves As Frauds.

It is not unusual for the CoA counselor to believe that he or she is a fraud. It has far more to do with self-feelings than with performance. Someone I supervise came to me with this issue not too long ago. “He can I help my clients build their self-esteem if I struggle with that myself?” he said.

The idea that unless all of your personal issue are resolved, you are counseling under fales pretense would mean that no one would be qualified to be a counselor. If your client’s issue is your own current struggle, you may need to refer him or her to someone else. Counselors need to be human and not being finished is a part of being human. Most of us from time to time when faced with new situations that involve the demonstration of confidence feel like “little kids playing grown up. “ It is that child within us that has the performance anxiety.

The fear of the CoA is deeper and each workplace job performance assessment brings it up all over again. “How long will it be until they discover I’ve been fooling them into believing that I know what I’m doing?” This leaves the CoA in a continual state of stress.

Adult Children Of Alcoholics Tend To Over Identify With And Become Over Invested In Their Clients.

This is a boundary issue which relates directly back to childhood. It was impossible to know where your needs and feelings ended and someone else’s began. It was impossible to know who was the parent and who was the child. To what degree were you supposed to make it right for everyone else? How could you know what was your problem and what was somebody else’s? It’s very easy to become overly concerned with your clients and well.

It is not the client’s benefit to bring concerns about him or her home with you night after night. It does not improve your skill as a counselor not to be able to leave your clients behind. The client will not know the difference but you will propel yourself toward burnout. You are not your client. Your client’s growth is not a measure of your personal growth. The parameters need to be made clear and one of the ways to make them clear is to work with the client during the time that you are working with the client and let that be that. If supervision is necessary that is something else again, but that is something that is formally structured. When you leave your place or work, you leave it. You may have to fight your mind for a while in order to accomplish this, but it may be the difference of your remaining in the field and your getting burned out. Taking your work home with you does not make you a better counselor.

The discussion in a supervision group was on working with families who have had a family member commit suicide. As the discussion went on, one of the clinicians in the group looked more and more depressed. When I asked him what was going on with him he said, “The discussion is getting to me. This is a very serious problem area for me. I find that I take on my client’s issues like lint and I am unable to pick them off. I know how to be different. I know the professional discipline that it takes. I know the principles of detachment. I know how to replace one thought with another. I know that I am not all-powerful and cannot fix everything for everybody. None of that knowledge seems to do me any good. What do you suppose this means?”

“It’s certainly a boundary issue for you,”I said. “ You parents never respected your boundaries. They constantly humiliated you in public. They took credit for that which you did that was good and wonderful. They never let you be separate from them. They never let you develop and separate yourself as a person. I suspect that this is a reason why you’re going to be the opposite of your parents. You are so angry at your parents and so critical of your parents that whatever they say, whatever they do, however they behave there is a red flag saying I will behave the opposite. Since they were always angry, you never allow yourself to be angry. Since they were always out of control, you always need to maintain control. “I suspect they also had no compassion for other human beings. They certainly had no compassion or sensitivity towards what you were feeling and certainly did not spend time and demonstrate concern with what was going on with you. Here again you have decided to be the opposite of them. In so doing you have become over-involved. You are too caring.” It is the extremes with which we must concern ourselves. Because your parents were not caring does not mean that you need to be all-consumed with the caring. It does mean that you have to move a little bit more toward their position. The idea for both you and your parents is to be more centered. The reality is that for your own growth, you need in some ways to be more like them.

CoA Counselors Have A Need For Their Clients To Like Them. They Seek Approval Not Only From Their Supervisors And Peers But Also From Their Clients.

This is another area that can become burdensome for you. Clients will simply not like you all of the time. It is part of your responsibility to do and say things that they do not like. They are not in a place to separate out your words from your person and they will get angry at you. This goes with the territory. You need to be very careful not to carry this response around with you. The important thing is that your client hears and doe the things that are to his or her benefit. The important thing is the positive movement toward growth. I had a client of mine call me from a rehab center. She was very angry with me. She said to me,” You told me I would not have a great deal of difficulty with withdrawal and I had a terrible time,” My response was, “That was because I didn’t realize how bad a shape you were in.”

She began to laugh. I did not have to take on her anger. I did not have to defend myself. I was able to affect her getting the help that she requires. That is my job. That is my goal. If she needs someone to blame if she is angry, so be it. The blaming will not last long. It will stop when she begins to feel better. But her interests are my interests. It’s very hard to separate that out if you are looking for your client’s approval. I suggest that if you need to seek approval — and we all do to one degree or another — you seek it from people who are in at least as good a shape as you are. If your client are in at least as good shape as you are, you may want to reconsider what you are doing for a living.

Adult Children Of Alcoholics Who Are Clinicians Avoid Conflict.

It is certainly understandable that if you grew up in a a home where there was always conflict and never resolution, you would back away from it. If you grew up in a home where you were afried when anger was expressed that either you would be hurt or that someone else would be hurt or that you would be invisible or that someone else would be rejected, it is not difficult to see why you would discourage this kind of behavior.

It is a of the therapeutic process for the client to learn to deal with his or her anger. It is a necessary part of the therapeutic process for you and your client to enter into conflict. If this does not happen, ever, you really need to take a hard look at what you are doing that prevents it from happening. Another aspect that you have to look at critically is whether or not you yourself know how to resolve conflict. It may be absolutely essential not only in your own life but in your professional life that you develop the necessary tools to deal with working through and resolving conflict.

Adult Children Of Alcoholics Have Difficulty Making Referrals.

The difficulty in making referrals comes from a fear of being found out. If you make a referral, the fear is that others will discover that you are incompetent. They will learn that you could not work with this client, and that you did not have the necessary skills to work with this client. You don’t want people to know your limitations. The reality is that we all have limitations and the idea is not to try to hide them but to recognize them. In recognizing that there are others who are more skilled with certain clients than we are, we better serve our clients. We cannot be specialist in all areas. We cannot relate to all the people who comes to see us. It is not possible nor is it desirable.”I cannot help you but I can help you find somebody who can” is a statement of competence.

CoA Professionals Have Impatience With Stuck Clients.

This results from self-judgment, in part, and a judgement of the client on the other part. The self-judgment is,”If I were a better clinician, my client would not get stuck. Therefore, the inability of my client to move at this time is a negative reflection on me.”

The other part of it is a counter-transferece issue with your client.”I was where you are and I got through it, I got by it, I did what I had to do. Why can’t you?”

There may be two realities here. One may be that your client only looks stuck. Something people need time in order to solidify their learnings. Sometimes people need to take a breather before they move on and make new decisions. Sometimes, clients remain stuck to that they don’t have to make the change which is so terrifying to them.

The other aspect is that there may be something you could be doing for your client that you are not doing. Believing that it is an inadequacy in you that causes your client to be stuck will get in the way of your asking a supervisor or a fellow counselor for some thoughts of what they would do if they were in this position.

“My client is stuck” and “I must fix” are not equivalent statements.

Many Look For A Treatment Road Map

Many want to know before they begin with a client just exactly what to do, how to take it, where to take it, how long it will take, what is the best approach to take, what one should not do, and so on. It’s not unusual for one to get this request. Especially it’s asking for a road map through treatment. It’s not a whole lot different from the road map that many CoA went for their lives. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how to handle myself. Tell me if I am doing the right thing. Tell me if I am doing the wrong thing. Is this a good decision to make? Is this a poor decision to make?” This difficulty and this need for structure, order, and direction is a legacy from childhood. Because there was no foundation on which to build, there is a great deal of insecurity left as to deciding what is the correct road to take.

Those of us who train counselors would be disrespectful in giving you a treatment road map. There is no treatment road map just as there is no life road map. There are the things that work and the things that don’t work. There are the things that one tests that don’t work so successful. It is important to be able to help your client discover options and alternatives, to help your client be aware of the possible consequences of exploring each one of these options and alternatives. If this is what you are truly asking, if this is what you are truly looking for, it is different from looking for a road map. It is saying,”What are the different courses that this treatment could take? What are the possibilities that I need to be mindful of before I begin? What are my goals and what are my client’s goals?” Those are legitimate questions. Those are important questions. Those questions may need to be asked.

Adult Children Of Alcoholics Who Are Clinicians Are Poor Stress Managers.

Being stressed had been the natural order of things. You grew up in a stress-filled household. It was what you know. It was the way that you tell all the time. As a result in the workplace when you are stressed. You are not necessarily aware of it. Working with clients is very difficult. Working with clients is a highly stressed situation. You do not have an opportunity to relax; you do not have an opportunity to give anyone less than your full attention. If you are relaxing or if you are giving your client less than your full attention, you are not doing your job. Therefore, by definition, you are in a highly stressed situation. This isn’t to say that it cannot be really satisfying. This is not to say that this is not the way that you would prefer to work. What it does say is that it is important for you to recognize that this stress must be managed. It is important that you recognize that you must take relief from the stress. It is important that you develop the means for doing so.

Adult Children Of Alcoholics Who Are Clinicians Deny Their Own Counter-Transferece.

Counter- transference somehow is a a dirty word. Clinicians are not supposed to Counter-transferece. Clients are supposed to transfer but clinicians are not supposed to Counter-transferece. Therefore,a Clinicians who has a counter-transferece reaction to a client is less than perfect. So since CoA who are clinicians have to be perfect, they will tend to deny their own counter-transference. It is not possible not to counter-tranfer with at least some of your clients. It is not possible for you not to be drawn to a child that you would like to take home. It is not possible for you not to be furious at someone who behaves as someone in your life who abused you. It is not possible for you always not be sexually drawn toward a client. This is simply the way that it is. Admitting it to yourself means that you can get a handle on it. Sometimes it’s not serious. Sometimes your awareness of your response to this client means it will not get in your way.

Sometimes a reaction is so powerful that it becomes necessary for you to refer that client to somebody else. This is not a reflection on you. If it happens consistently, you may want to take a good hard look at it. It is not useful for you to deny it. The transference of the client to the counselor is a very useful one for the CoA. It is not harmful for the Clinicians to be proud of the client’s growth and progress. This pride is certainly a parental pride. It feels good and it is not at all harmful to the client. If it goes much further than that, one needs to be careful. I know I had to stop seeing young children. My counter-transferece reaction to them was too great. I wanted to bring all of them home with me. I wanted to take care of them. They had in fact become mine. This was not useful or beneficial to them, nor was it useful or beneficial to me.

CoA Who Are Clinicians Tend To Not Limit Their Caseload.

You are the one in the agency who will take on that additional case. You are the one they can always be sure has space for one more. This has to do with your not knowing your own limitations. This has to do with your inability to say “no”. This has to do with your not recognizing it when you are being exploited.

It is very important that you are careful to recognize just how many clients it is appropriate for you to handle and at what point it is a good idea for you to say ”no” . Check around. Don’t do this necessary within your own agency, because if you are being exploited there is a real good chance that others are being exploited too. Check around with people who work in other places and feel comfortable with their workload. See if they are carrying as many clients as you are. See how their case management is worked out. Where in your day is time built in for the paperwork that piles up way over head? Where is time built in for you to return phone calls? This is all part of your job description. If you are seeing clients from the minute you walk in until the minute you leave and then have to do this work on your own, it is inappropriate, it is exploitive. Steps need to be taken to balance this out. This may be a good opportunity to check yourself and find out if you are propelling towards burnout. The counselor who does not take careful precaution does not last in this field. Balance is the goal. All of these feelings are present some of the time, but on a scale of 1 to 5, any more than a 2 is the danger zone.

— Janet Geringer Woititz

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