Therapy 101

One of the most valuable experiences I've had at Mars Hill has been my involvement in a "class" called Practicum. For lack of better words, it's group therapy that's designed to teach us about ourselves, our style of relating, and the opportunity to practice basic counseling skills. Last semester, each of the nine members took a week and shared a story from our lives. We would then respond to the stories, hopefully in a manner that would challenge the student to engage their life and their story more deeply.

This semester, we added to the practicum experience what we call a "triad." It's a group of three students that begins practicing therapy with each other. So, I am the therapist for one student, who acts as a client. They become the therapist for the third student, and that third student becomes the therapist for me. It's a great, non-threatening way to begin to practice basic therapeutic interactions.

However, each week, in our normal practicum meeting of nine students plus two staff, one student counsels another student during the practicum meeting while everyone else observes. Today was the first meeting, and I drew the short straw and was the first 'therapist.'

Now, it's bad enough that we really have no idea what we're doing yet - I'm only 9 credit hours into a 66 hour program. But now I am expected to be the 'therapist' for another student while 7 other students and 2 staff scrutinize every possible thing about my interaction: how I sat, how I began the session, how I looked at the time, what questions I asked, what questions I avoided asking, the tone of my voice, my facial expressions, directions I avoided taking, my body posture, how much time I left silent before I asked a question!!! Everything is fair game. Worst of all, there's no right or wrong answer to any of these things - since there is no formula, I cannot just 'follow the book' and be fine - I must read the 'client' and read myself at all times. Where are my anxieties? What are they saying about me? What are they saying about the client? Am I uncomfortable with silence because of me? or because of something with the client? Am I bored? Why? Because the client is boring? or because the client is completely disengaged from his or her own story so I'm disengaged too? Is he or she being honest about his or her feelings? Is the client testing me? Is the client taking care of me? Do I need to be taken care of? Or is he or she avoiding something?......and the list goes on....

So, not only am I listening to the client, but I'm supposed to be listening to the questions in myself. And then, I'm supposed to respond in a helpful way - all while 9 other people are critiquing everything I do, say, don't do, or don't say.

Oh yeah, and then we spent an hour processing how I did, what I could have done differently, and what would be helpful for me to think about in the future.

Talk about NERVERACKING!!!

Now that it's all said and done, the one thing I know for certain: it's over and I don't have to do it again :)