Counselling - Coaching - StressManagement

Personal development is at the heart of our journey as counsellors and therapists. It is the core condition of recognising ourselves and one another as human beings and not human doings. Without it we are detached from the ideology of the meaning of human. What we are depends upon our lived experiences and feedback from others about how we impact on people with whom we come into contact and who we touch, emotionally and spiritually, and who touch us in a similar way. These are the fundamental core elements of our craft as therapists and counsellors. This is what we are in the business of attempting to do - to teach our clients how to become more human through being in touch with others who have embarked on a journey of personal development. In order to know where we are it is important to have some idea of how we got there and it is my intention to attempt to illustrate this path by showing how our personality develops over a life-long period. What we become depends on multifarious forces that shape and mould our identity - some of which we have control over and others of which are completely out of our control.

The Chambers Dictionary defines ‘identity’ as, simply, "who or what a person is", while the Open University D103 Glossary offers, "the characteristics by which individuals or groups are recognised by others and by themselves - who or what they are and where they belong in human society". Both these definitions encompass class, gender, ethnic origin, national and other identities. In order to see how identity changes through the process of personal self-development it seems necessary to compare how personal identity is seen by different perspectives. Rogers (1961) emphasised how important it is to maintain one’s own identity while grasping the client’s world; Kelly (1955) suggests that,’You are not the victim of your own autobiography, but you may become the victim of the way you interpret (it)’, in his promotion of his personal construct theory; Satre (1934) from the viewpoint of the existentialist states, ‘We are our choices, with the freedom to redesign our lives by those choices. There are four different perspectives that I wish to offer, namely the phenomenological, the psychoanalytical, the biological and the social. It is worth considering in this case whether all are actually looking at the same thing but for the purpose of this article I shall only compare the phenomenological, Humanistic and the biological models as I see those as models fitting in to the development of the counsellor and which contrast most widely in their explanation of our identity and how it changes throughout life, particularly when experiencing personal reflection through the cycle of personal exploration.

The phenomenological perspective, (phenomenon of self), emphasises that we as human beings actively interpret and make sense of our lives and our worlds through symbolic thoughts, reflecting on our own feelings and actions and those of the world surrounding us. This reflective awareness can be described as, "the human capacity to be aware of one’s self as being a particular person distinct from all others and to reflect on the experience of being that person and who that person is". (Stevens, 1985). This self-awareness generates other factors such as the importance of language and thought which enable us to transcend time and space, think about past and future and to use our imagination.

Also generated is an awareness of our own mortality, choice and the need for a meaning to our lives. This experience of personal identity depends not only on self-awareness but also on a sense of personal continuity and of agency, that is, having the power to produce an effect, for example, "I am going to cheer him up". Self-awareness and personal agency is not something which we are born with, however, in fact we acquire the sense of self-awareness and personal agency as we develop from infancy to adulthood. Erich Fromm (1960) calls this stage individuation and relates it to being a bit like a double edged sword, where the transition from autonomy out of childhood is replaced by realisation of independence but results in separateness and perhaps aloneness so
our inner identity changes.

Everyone entering into the counselling contract as a client has the right to expect their counsellor to be capable of attending their needs; needs which can place great demands on the counsellors emotional resources. We as counsellors have needs of our own and those of us that are drawn into the ‘helping professions’ are often more comfortable giving than receiving. For this reason it is important to consider the reasons behind the career choice as clients should not be expected to fulfill the needs of the counsellor of being in control, virtuous and resourceful. The counselling setting is often the place where feelings which seem too dangerous to be expressed anywhere else can emerge safely and through personal exploration of the self it can be established if the counsellor can cope well with feelings of anger, desperation, sadness and grief, hurt and rejection, not only in the client but in oneself.

The phenomenological perspective implies that we are able to self-create by actively participating in the building of our individual identities and this provides the main support of this particular theory. Glover (1988) reasoned that, "shaping ourselves is a more important aspect than is usually supposed. It should be given a central place in our thinking about social issues," (Glover, 1988, p.110). He goes on to explain how simple everyday decisions give leverage to who we become. What needs to be taken into account here is the fact that our simple individual decisions are often influenced by social construction. By consciously adapting our personality to fit in with the expectations of family, friends, employers and, in relation to this topic, clients, for example, we may in fact be acting in response to our own unconscious expectations. I do not suggest that we should never be confused, frustrated or unhappy in our work as counsellors. Our work is to help clients locate in themselves the resources they need to exist creatively which should be reflected in our work with them. Counsellors do not accept things at face value, particularly when it comes to human resources but this can mean discovering painful truths about our clients and ourselves along the way. Glover (1988) argues that we create ourselves in the image of those expectations and by telling others what our self-created belief is we not only deceive them but also deceive ourselves.

It would appear that ideology puts blinkers on our eyes for to assume a personal style and express it as our own is failing to account for our private choices being influenced by public representations both locally and globally. If we were to develop within the counselling field in Salisbury, for example, our personal and professional identity would be very different from that if we had developed our real sense of self in London. Different regions help shape our personal and professional identities in different ways and changes of location might also alter our identity further. From a personal perspective I can see the value, for the furtherance of my career, of a move to London where I have only recently secured work as a senior counsellor in an all-male prison. For me this marks a challenging time in my life which until recently I would never have considered. I have always identified myself as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse bent on working with victims but at this juncture in my career I have chosen to work with perpetrators of that abuse. I believe that this is a direct result of the challenging personal development that I have undergone over the last six years.

A further existential issue to the phenomenological perspective is the search for meaning. For some the way to understand the representations of our belief system sees them joining religious sects in their search for meaning, or, as Cottrell (1979) suggests, it is more common within modern United Kingdom for people to find meaning by, "creating everyday projects related to work and family". Counsellors face uncertainty at many levels and the search through skills and theories often leaves us not knowing what brings about emotional healing. We work in a field where, as yet, no clear career path has been defined leaving us to compete for work which we can only take if it is within our own personal level of competence. Our work involves looking introspectively which creates some level of risk for us as counsellors and for our clients who may present us with painful and difficult aspects of life: loss, relationship difficulties and all kinds of abuse. We also have to consider if the satisfaction of ‘doing’ the job is more important than the financial reward. This is not a career where you can get rich quick and much of one’s earnings in the early stages of the counselling career are minimal, if there is any gain at all, and most of the time further training, personal therapy, supervision, insurance etc. has to be maintained to protect oneself and the client. It might be quite tempting to take on a client who was rich even if the counsellor were not the best person to deal with the issues presented.

So how actively do we participate in the making of our own identity and how much are we influenced by ideology within the phenomenological perspective? Bandura (1989) claimed that ‘perceived self-efficacy’, is the most relevant factor. Our individual differences depend on how capable we see ourselves of achieving what we want to do. This is linked to ideas that the more we want to change the more likely we are to try which is similar to the idea of self-fulfilling prophecy. Bandura believes in perceived self-efficacy and therefore in the idea that we can create our own identity changing to suit ourselves with perhaps an acceleration of the process with limitations of mortality.

The biological perspective see’s personal identity and development from a different angle and has two aspects that I will look at separately. Firstly, it is concerned with the body and sees it as an intrinsic part of identity and personality believing that it is through the ways that we relate to other people and to the world around us. How we relate to our clients is the core element of the work we do and we have to be ever vigilant about the way we sit, look, hold our hands, move and even dress . We often use body language and movements to express our feelings, (if only by fluttering our eyelashes to attract a mate) and these subtle moves also allow us to interact with others on a social level. If the ability to use our body is taken away then our ability to connect and develop is more restricted. Contact with others is through bodily actions and if the body is mistreated or hurt, for example, then the personal identity is too, according to the biological perspective and approach. We are aware of how our body feels, if it is tired or excited and we are aware how effective it is as an instrument. If our body hurts then we hurt too. We are also affected by our body image and how we appar to others knowing that our appearance affects their attitude which affects how we feel about ourselves and this may influence what we do to self-create. We learn to promote our best assets in order to maximise the most beneficial attention in the hope that others identify us as what we would like to be rather than what we really are. People who have often aged, for example, may often feel that they look younger than they do and this is often apparent in men like myself who are approaching mid-life.

Levinson’s (1978) idea about the physical changes throughout the seasons of a man’s life are particularly appropriate here where men, like myself, get older and see an gradual yet effective change in the body such as hair loss, memory loss, loss of faculties and in my case, the inability to retain information! How we are perceived by clients should not get in the way of our work but often I have found myself wondering what a client thinks about me. This was an issue I needed to explore in supervision and realised that there was some erotic transference about in my session with the client. This biological transformation can be drastic, take for example one of my clients whose feelings about himself in both the public sphere and private domain were affected by others because of his disability after an horrific road traffic accident in which he lost mobility and now has to use a wheelchair.

Other influences such as chemical imbalances in the brain can affect our personality and sense of self and these can be brought about by abuse or misuse of alcohol and drugs used socially. A lot of my work has been in the addiction field working with people who cannot live without some mood altering chemical to get them through their pain. I too was an addict once and the importance placed upon working as a counsellor with several years clean time cannot be stressed highly enough. Depression often results from this type of imbalance and often the results can give false perceptions of ourselves by others, and ourselves. This theory was explored in depth by Hans Eysenck who believed that aspects of personality are inherited. He claimed to have identified underlying personal dimensions which provide a hierarchical model of personality and self which reveals patterns of surface traits as well as the continuity of identity.

Eysenck (1985) believed that the human personality is divided into two major traits which could be scientifically measured using psychometric testing to measure extraversion (E) and introversion (N) and he regarded environmental influences as of little importance. Intra version and extraversion were terms used to describe personality traits of impulsiveness, risk taking and stimulus seeking. Eysenck believed that they were physiologically based. The consequences of the physiological differences enabled Eysenck to categorise people into clusters or groups and based on his research he found that social people in general were impulsive. Another dimension Eysenck measured was that of neuroticism or stability. He believed that an average person would be placed centrally on his two dimension chart of E and N. If extraversion and introversion is biologically based then it is reasonable to argue that some aspects of identity are inherited and indeed physical characteristics are passed on from our parents in the form of genes.

Eysenck tested the theory of hereditary personality and self in a study of identical twins who were brought up separately but whose E and N scores correlated. Kamin (1974) argued that social factors may have played a part in the results claiming that children may have grown up in similar environments which relates back to the part of this essay dealing with social factors in the phenomenological approach and how the suggestion that the world environment helps determine personality. (Guardian 30.07.97).

Secondly, the sociobiological approach is based on the belief that social behaviour is determined by inherited pre-disposition characteristics of humans. The outcome of natural and sexual selection also focuses on the evolutionary origins of the behavioural patterns arguing that the origins of consciousness, and a sense of individual identity, may develop because of the value in understanding, relating to and co-operating with others. It goes on to say that some differences in identity and behaviour may originate in the reproductive strategies which are considered optimal for our male and female ancestors.

Humanistic development took place in the 1950's largely as a reaction to behaviourism and psychoanalyses, fitting well with the social and political emancipation of the 1960's. It concentrates more on the orientation to psychology than on a coherent set of ideas and theories, assuming that subjective experience is primary to personal growth, and is phenomenological rather than behaviourist as a perspective and that all people possess a capacity for personal growth and personal agency having some choice and responsibility for what they become. It suggests that each individual is a whole and takes into account the many aspects of feelings, thoughts and bodily awareness which make up our experience of being a person.

The existentialist theory sees people as being directly responsible for their own life choices, placing strong emphasis on the ability to say "no" and accept the consequences, maintaining that people are responsible for their own actions. Acknowledgement of the constraints on our lives is an important part of existentialism and our culture widely accepts that we are unable to control certain things in our lives, for example, our own mortality, who our parents are and our language. By taking responsibility for our own actions we act authentically but allowing others to make choices for us is seen as acting unauthentically. Many people are afraid of their own freedom of choice and behave in convential ways avoiding the act of self-actualisation. I remember working with a client who was so desperate to please me that he would say what he thought I wanted to hear rather than what was really going on for him. Through my own personal journey which identified me as a ‘Yes-man’, I was able to recognise the pattern and avoid falling into that trap. It might have been so easy to allow this behaviour to continue because it made me feel good rather than become increasingly aware and willing to share when we don’t really know what is going on for us, or when we are afraid to speak, or do not feel comfortable in another’s presence. To reveal ourselves is to take a risk and that is so for our clients. We can, however, create an atmosphere in which we can make the client feel safe enough to explore these feelings because we have experienced them ourselves in our own therapy and supervision.

Victor Frankl (1959) highlighted significant ways that we develop purposive intrinsic selves through action, in particular creative activity, experience, love and attitude. A criticism here is that Frankl’s ideas failed to take into account the social context in which we live where in reality individuality is influenced by society where change and progress is synonymous with autonomy.

Continuing on from Frankl’s idea of personal agency bringing about change was the work of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. Maslow’s idea was that certain needs require meeting before self-actualisation can be realised. Maslow’s theory of motivation (1954/1987) suggested that in order to become what one is capable of becoming needs have to be met. His hierarchy of needs theory suggests that a physical need is related to survival and consists of basic requirements for food, drink, warmth, sleep and sex, and is the first step to self-actualisation. This is followed by the need for safety being met, safety in this case being physical, economic and psychological security. If these needs are met then a need for love, belonging and affection through intimacy is the next step followed by the need for self esteem which is a requirement for competency, adequacy, self-respect and respect from others. Once these needs are met self-actualisation is reached. Maslow indicated that needs are not always defined and an analysis of self-actualisation was conducted by him with a sample of people most of whom were over sixty years old. From this he deduced that self- actualisation develops with maturity and concluded that the potential for personal growth comes from making a choice rather than remaining with the safe option thereby realising the possibility of peak experiences. 

Carl Rogers has been the most significant figure in humanistic psychology and he developed his theory of personality using three main concepts. He refers to the term "organism" as an organised, whole individual, emphasising concepts of drive and motivation. The phenomenological field, referred to earlier, Rogers refers to as a person’s life experiences including those which are unconscious. He stressed that self-awareness of the person on a conscious level is the most important and best way to work in understanding behaviour by making reference to the internal framework. The third concept is that of the self, when their is a development of the I and the Me. The self develops from childhood experiences of what we can or cannot do, does or does not like and what is enjoyed or disliked doing and by evaluation of the self by other’s who are significant in one’s life, for example parents and teachers, employers and counsellors. Positive regard by these significant others is often conditional except in the case of counsellor. Rogers indicated that it is more appropriate to help one realise that it is okay to have feelings of anger and jealousy but it is not okay to act on those feelings because of the resultant damage that behaviour might cause.

Maslow and Rogers both believed that self-actualisation is the core to development of the self and that restoring a person to his full potential requires a form of non-directive counselling which enables the person to realise and bring out feelings repressed from childhood. By offering a safe environment and unconditional positive regard the person can develop their real sense of self thus enabling them to move on. This form of personal change Rogers calls person-centred. It is experiential, allowing the person to get in touch with their true feelings. Personal change is therefore seen as the result of being given therapeutic space where repressed feelings are allowed out into the open. Unconditional positive regard enables the person to move on and get in touch with their real feelings.

It can be seen that the phenomenological perspective is approached in the form of a philosophical investigation and is not measured but described in terms of meaning through introspection, reflection and ‘thought experiments’ while the biological approach uses statistical analysis as a method to measure behaviour in order to identify personality changes and a change of one’s self. The phenomenological perspective presents the strongest support for this essay strongly arguing that self-awareness, self-motivation, choice and the capacity to consider alternatives are intrinsic to the human condition of identity and change while the biological perspective submits that people’s identities are largely determined by their personality type and dependent on inherited biological characteristics. We should not overlook the fact that all perspectives have something in common: the
biological, social and psychoanalytical stress factors beyond our individual control while the phenomenological emphasises agency and choice.

I believe that all four perspectives can help to account for change and play a part in forming, shaping and reshaping our identities and that, as individuals, we each react differently to the influences placed upon us. All approaches to therapy and counselling have a vocabulary of their own and all theoretical models have explanations and agreed forms of contact, speaking and being which are based on these fundamental values and conventions regulating our social and professional conduct. These do differ between each orientation, school, organisation and individual but this is what makes for the richness of our profession. The invitation is to participate fully in a frank observation over a lifelong period about our differences in attitudes, beliefs, intentions and actions as our modesty, fearfulness, confusion, need for and fear of recognition and belonging allow. When we embark on a career as a counsellor we embark on the risky journey into our own dark interior and agree to do so in the company of men and women who have also promised to travel alongside in a shared adventure (!) of personal discovery filled with trials and tribulations leading to new and unknown pastures green. We cannot know in advance who we will become but can only give of ourselves allowing the process of growth to unfold revealing our own unique qualities of strengths and shortcomings. The difference by this time is that we can accept the criticism or praise and work with it rather than against it. Throughout this we continue to be tied up in our own personal webs of the responsibility of jobs, relationships, families, partnerships or communities and we need to ensure our financial and material survival.

Our challenge as counsellors is to find a workable compromise between attaining the freedom to discover who we are and a secure means of living at the same time placing responsibility on us all to continue working on establishing our personal identity through self-reflection and support of each other along the way. Our learning through our peers, trainers, tutors, and supervisors will help us identify our own strengths and manage or change our shortcomings. Through reflection in my own personal journal, a tool of my trade, I have seen that I was much more mistaken in my own preconception about who I thought I was than I ever imagined possible and my need to be the best has changed. Now I would only like to be as good as I can be and I am happy in the knowledge that my best is good enough.

To realize that to give your best requires an inward journey instead of an outward search shows that you possess greater wisdom than most in this day and age. Sometimes, on journeys inward, people run into roadblocks or personal turmoil and where in the past this would have been seen as self-defeating behaviour, with courage and perseverance, a counsellor embarking on this trip of self-discovery will see it as an opportunity to learn more about themselves which in turn will benefit the client.


References:
BAC (1992/1994) Code of Ethics and Practice for Counsellors. Rugby: British Association for Counselling.

Bandura, A. (1989) ‘Perceived Self-efficacy in the excersize of Personal Agency’, The Psychologist, October 1989.

Casement, P. (1985) On learning from the Patient. London: Tavistock.

Egan, G. (1986, Third Edition) The Skilled Helper. Monterey: Brooks/Cole.

Erikson, E.H. (1980) Identity and the Life Cycle: New York: W.W. Norton.

Eysenck, H.J. (1967) The Biological Basis of Personality. Springfield: Thomas.

Glover, J. (1988) I: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Jacobs, M. (1988) Psychodynamic Counselling in Action. London: Sage.

Johns, H. (1998) Personal Development in Counsellor Training. London: Cassell.

Maslow, A.H. (1970, Third edition) Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper and Row.

Rogers, C.R. (1961) On Becoming a Person. London: Constable.

Sartre, J.P. (1934) Theory and Practice of Psychotherapy. New York: Brooks/Cole.