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Personal
Automomy is
Vital to Persona Growth Part 2
It is for this reason that I am particularly keen on Rogerian Counselling. Here the whole aim of the counselling is to help the client let go of the false self concept they have built up through their experiences and to be in touch with their inner feeling self and own inner resources. Here the counsellor does not take responsibility for the client, but the counsellor most certainly takes responsibility for themselves and how they act towards the client. The counsellor will be taking care to make sure that they work within the core conditions of genuiness, empathy and unconditional positive regard. The counsellor, rather than taking responsibility "for" the client will take responsibility to be their "with" the client. This is possibly of crucial importance. Almost all therapeutic traditions try to get the client to accept responsibility for their situation. However if the 'helper' is advising or telling the client what to do, then really the helper is the person responsible for the outcome - something which for some reason, they do not seem to understand. In some supposedly therapeutic situations there is the situation wherein the person is expected to do what they are "told" - that is to not be self directing but at they same time they are expected to take responsibility for the outcome!!
A good counsellor by being responsible to be there with but not for the client, allows the client, possibly for the first time in their life to be responsible for their own actions. They are no longer being oppressed. They have freedom of choice and are given responsibility for themselves. They can work through things in their own time and if and when they make mistakes come back and work through these. Rogerian. counselling to my knowledge is the only counselling practice which has as its core, conditions which will help a person be in touch with their inner feeling self and authenticity..or in other words personal autonomy.
Rogerian counselling is not the only way that people can get constructive help but the core conditions, coupled with the counsellor being responsible to but not for the client are I believe the root of any help which will support a person to work through problems and rediscover their personal autonomy. I have a particular liking for Jungian psychology as well. Jung himself recognised that the relationship between the therapist and the counsellor was of crucial importance if therapy was to be effective. If the therapist became detached and aloof he doubted if much would be achieved. There must of course be a level of detachment - the counsellor does not want to become involved in the process to the extent that they start having an agenda! The detachment in good counselling is shown by a respect for two people being there communicating, but that detachment does not extend to being so detached the counsellor is unable to feel empathy for the client.
A good counsellor achieves this by being strongly in touch with themselves. For this reason the counsellor must continue to work on themselves. Only a counsellor who keeps themselves fresh and resolves their own issues can really be there on the journey to healing with their client.
I feel strongly about this. We all know that there are many so called "therapies" which in no way respect a person's autonomy and rather work on imposing their view on you . Personally, in any help system I find this immoral as our autonomy, in my opinion is our spirituality. Our inner feeling self is our spirit (in my opinion) so any therapy which tries to impose its will on the client is acting counter to the therapeutic process and against the spirit of that person. Any therapy which acts counter to respect the inner feeling self of the individual is acting in a brainwashing way!
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