Seeking Professional Counseling

At one time, it was a sign of shame that anyone would admit they needed some assistance with the many challenges that most of us face in the daily process of living life.

When I opened my first clinical practice in 1973 at a medical clinic in North Carolina, my office was placed in the back of the building so that no one could see into the waiting room.  There was a separate appointment book kept under the reception desk counter so that no one could accidentally read who had made an appointment.

Patients could even leave by a back door if privacy was a very important issue.  Naturally, only those with the most severe psychic pain chose to come to the office even though I was the only licensed psychologist in the county.  Reaching out to individuals with ‘normal’ pains and stresses was and is a continuing process for me.

Even with all of the progress of acceptability made in the mental health fields since 1973, it is unfortunate that much of our society today is more supportive and accepting of individuals with physical wounds and illness than emotional ones.

The counseling relationship is one that focuses on changing an individual's thought patterns and behaviors.  Most of us know that real change is seldom easy or pleasant.  Yet, without change, one is usually destined to continue with the same set of stresses which prevent the development of positive mental health.


Many individuals choose to use a friend's ear when they are in pain regardless of the friend's skills and abilities.  Most friends try to make the person feel better with their assistance.  Fortunately, a counselor is not restrained by this.  Counseling is often a process where the focus is healing and the goal is long-term health rather than situational quick-fixes.  During this process the individual may or may not feel better in the short term as he confronts and implements a healing program for his/her long-range emotional health.


A personal challenge for many is accepting the reality that they do need some type of professional assistance in handling their psychic pain.  Unfortunately, denial is a very strong defense mechanism as is rationalization while 'wishing' for magical change is always popular.

Even after an individual is willing to seek professional assistance for emotional problems, one of the remaining challenges for many is finding a qualified and suitable mental health professional with whom to visit and work on personal issues.

Like any service-related business, there are many ways to seek out a mental health professional.  The one that seems to work the best for many people is personal referral.  This method does require one to disclose to another that they are seeking mental health assistance and this may be uncomfortable for some.  However, input from someone who has received the same service can be very educational for what one is seeking.

It can be confusing to understand the difference between the various fields of mental health workers.  There are psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, licensed professional counselors, religious and spiritual advisers, etc.  It seems that there are many different counselor-types  for each individual to consider.

Self-education can help an individual tell the difference between what each specialty offers.  There are state licensing boards and professional organizations that can offer a great deal of assistance with the factual aspects of choosing a mental health professional.

While mental health counseling is a service-oriented process, choosing a counselor is far more personal than selecting a barber or car mechanic.  If one lives in a community with a diversity of mental health specialties, the most challenging part for an individual is finding the professional where there is a 'personal fit' as well as one who is professionally qualified in his/her knowledge.   This relationship is going to be very personal so finding a professional who has the personality that matches your needs is a fundamental beginning.

Other factors to consider will be cost (insurance-qualified), location and availability for appointments.  The factor considered the most important to many professionals is TRUST.   Is this person someone who I can trust with my most personal thoughts and feelings in a confidential setting without concern or apprehension?

One of the most frequent concerns for those who have not had professional counseling before, is the expectation that they need to find the “perfect counselor” the first time.  There is no such thing as a perfect counselor any more than there is a perfect spouse, parent, child, friend, job, church, etc. 

One may consider counseling as being similar to a dating process.   Most go on the first date to learn more about the other person and their reactions to them while placing themselves on display for the other. 

The main goal of a first date is often to determine if one wants to go on a second date.  The same is frequently true of a counseling session:  did you have a positive enough experience to want to return to spend more time and share more of self with this person?  

Some counselors talk about these feelings at the conclusion of the first session while others may not.  Some clients are comfortable discussing that their goals are or are not being met; others prefer to skip this.  Since it your counseling session, you have the right to express your expectations to the counselor.  

If you are not connecting with a professional counselor, many of them will assist you by making referrals to another counselor with whom you may find to be more personable to your style of communicating.

The main challenge is for the individual to be honest with him/herself in making a decision on what direction to go with their need to receive some type of external assistance in handling the normal stresses of living.  

There are many who believe God made plenty of humans so that we would never be without the opportunity for assistance on this earth when we need it.  Regardless of one's spiritual or religious beliefs, an individual is always free to seek out others who are willing to assist.  Whether one actually acts on this fact or makes the choice to retain their stresses is always a personal choice.

Comment welcome.   Email: silverchatline@gmail.com

Choose To Define

Life gives me the opportunity to define and redefine what/who I am, know, believe and feel with the free choice to continue or change.

One does not need to be in the fields of counseling or education for very long before they discover the large number of people who believe that they do not have the opportunity to define who they are or become what they wish to be.

Life is a gift that we are given.  We are free to choose what we do with our gift of life.  Included in this gift is the power we each have to define ourselves through our self-image.  Although there are plenty of people who are willing and eager to define us using their own criteria, it remains our own personal decision as to whom we listen when we make choices that we use to define ourselves.

Using our own definitions, we decide who we are as an individual.  At any time during our Life Journey, we also have the power to re-decide and make changes.  We have the choice to listen to other people or seek other sources of knowledge.  We choose what we learn and how to use this knowledge in making us the individuals we are or wish to be.

By the time we have passed through childhood and adolescence, we have been heavily indoctrinated by society into what we should believe about our world and ourselves.  Even though it is difficult to resist the input we each receive from the important people and institutions in our world, we always retain the power of choice.

Whether we continue believing these societal beliefs or decide to redefine how these beliefs affect our self-image and behavior, the power to do so is always there for us to use.  Our challenge is whether we wish to do the intensive work necessary to explore, confront and make our own decisions as the basic beliefs of our lives.

Within this gift of life, we are given the power to feel.  As with other parts of our lives, society spares no effort to have an individual develop feelings that are “normal” and fit into our culture.  Like with the areas of knowledge and beliefs, we are free to decide what to do with the feelings that life has given to us.  Even with this freedom to choose beliefs and feelings about ourselves, the pressures to be normal and meet the expectations of others is intense.

In reality, most of us cannot help the way we feel at any particular moment, but we are able to define what these feelings mean to us and how we wish to act or not act on them.

We are able to structure situations which tend to encourage or discourage the presence of certain feelings.  We can decide to focus on which feelings make our lives better or worse for us to live.

Even if we accept the belief that we cannot always decide how we feel right now, each of us remains able to control the way we choose to think and act with these feelings.   As with other aspects of living, we remain responsible for the choices we make in how we choose to think and act in our daily lives.

Unfortunately, there are many people who refuse to accept life’s opportunity to decide who they are, what they know, how they feel or what they believe.   These individuals often prefer to stamp a big “V” on their forehead and play the psychological game of being a victim in their life style.  Playing a victim tends to release them from the responsibilities of defining, redefining and choosing healthy thoughts and actions.

As stated before, we are given the gift of life.  How we live that gift will be a result of how define ourselves though our self-image as well as the choices we make daily on our thoughts and behaviors.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Personal Journaling

For the wise, travel through one’s Life Journey is a continual process of learning and personal growth.  Regardless of our age and life history, there is always so much to learn about ourselves.   We can use various methods to evaluate how our personal choices are working for or against us.

If one is fortunate, they will make a personal retreat happen in their life.  This is a process where one retreats from his or her everyday environment for an extended period of time to a place that supports the process of introspection.  For many, this experience is enriched by the presence of a personal facilitator to add another human dimension and appropriate guidance when sought. 

Since a personal retreat is personal, there are many forms that it can take to allow a person to focus on who they are, where they have been or where they wish to go in the future.  There is no one ‘best’ form for this process of personal growth.

One of most valuable friends that I have found for myself on a personal retreat as well as for other periods in my Life Journey has been a personal journal.  This friend is where I communicate by writing and use other creative processes to record my feelings, thoughts and actions.  In this series, a friend is defined as someone with whom you can dare  to be yourself.

Like most friendships, each of us develops a personal style of mutual behaviors creating our journals to meet our individual needs.  There is no right or wrong way to produce one’s journal any more than there is to develop a friendship with another.  “To thy own self be true” is the goal I use for my journaling process.

There are many factors for each of us to consider when we decide to create and maintain a personal journal.  And, like other friendships, these factors are individual, personal and change over time as our relationship grows and matures.

Listed are some factors that each of us can consider as we decide what we want our journal friend to be.

1.  A journal is not the same as a diary or scrapbook, but can have many of the characteristics of both.  A journal usually has much more depth than these, but can include descriptions of events, people, memorabilia, etc.

2.  What goals does the individual wish for the journal to meet?  Being specific can be most helpful, even when these goals may change over time.

3.  What will be the frequency that one interacts with their journal?  Some people choose to interact daily, several times each day, every other day, or weekly, etc.   What length of time will one choose to spend with their journal to allow the relationship to become most effective?

4.  What form will one choose?  Will it all be written, or will it include art forms?  Using modern technology allows there be audio and/or video parts.   Will one style of writing be used or will it vary by mixing poetry with prose? 

5.  After one begins their journal, will one tend to stay with consistency in the format and content of their journals?   Will one be willing and maybe eager to experiment with their journal friendship by introducing new components?  It is sad that so many stay with a pattern with which they are familiar rather than experiment with ways which may provide more nurturance  and enrichment.

6.  As time passes, does one notice any changes in the degree of honesty and intimacy that one has with their journal?  If there are changes, what does that convey about your personal growth?

7.  At some point, almost everyone faces  the question of whether they wish to share a part of their journal with another person.   Depending on the personality type of the individual and the contents of the journal, this can be a very difficult choice for many.  Sharing one’s self with others at a deep personal level is a goal for some while keeping that part of self very personalized is the choice of others.

Hopefully compiling a journal can be one way to aid you in your personal Life Journey.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Me Responsible?

Most of us grow into adulthood and finally accept that we are the one who is responsible for our thoughts and behaviors.  Much of childhood and adolescence is spent in trying to be responsible for only the fun things in life and trying to displace the responsibility for any messes somewhere else.

Most people follow a path that says that when one leaves the chronological age of being a child or a youth, it is time to behave in an adult manner with ourselves and with other people. 

However, there are always some who believe that the goal of life is to accept personal responsibility for the positive happenings and find someone else to blame for the negative.  Unfortunately, immature attitudes like this can give living a bad name.

Becoming an adult by age or physical development does not guarantee that one reaches the adult level of emotional maturity.  Understanding this concept can help one interact more realistically with those who have not reached the emotional maturity of adulthood, whether by choice or by some other causation.

When one chooses to be an active listener to people who are looking outsides of themselves for the solutions to their problems or attempting to find someone to blame for their situations, it pays to be cautious with these people regardless of how eager one might be to offer assistance.

In counseling classes, one important foundation is offered early and frequently by instructors:  when listening to the life story of another person, it is wise to remember that the talker retains ownership of any situation or problem contained within. 

Unfortunately, people who want to help people often attempt to take over the problem and make it their own.  Almost no one learns how to solve a situation when someone else is there to relieve them of the stress, anxiety or other negative outcomes.

Yes, support though listening hospitality can be helpful for most people.  It does not involve being a preacher, judge, social worker, etc., to relieve the person of their own situations.  To be a mature adult, we are the ones who assume responsibility for our own thoughts, beliefs, feelings and behaviors.

A similar thought that can be helpful in listening to people tell their life stories without taking charge is to recall:  when I do what I have always done, I will get what I have always got. 

For many listeners there is the tendency to take the responsibility away from another by telling them how they can do something different if they expect a different result.  For the person telling his/her story, repeating the same behavior over and over is one way to displace any responsibility for negative outcomes outside of themselves. 

One of the sad realities of life is that many people do not want a different outcome because it does involve the work of doing something different.  Embracing change is a most difficult behavior for many.  Why do that IF one can find another person to take responsibility for my problem or do a repetitive and familiar behavior that does not alter my situation? 

Also, listeners would be wise to know that if their suggestions do not meet the outcomes expected by another, the blame will soon be back with the one who tried to be helpful.

Listening hospitality is a gift that we can offer to another person.  Like other gifts, it is given with no attachments or expectations.   Our responsibility is to be direct, honest, caring, etc. when we give the gift of listening.  It does not involve assuming responsibility for the burdens of another that may encourage them to return to the behaviors of childhood and/or adolescence where someone or something is responsible for what is happening in their world.

Comments welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Being Versus Doing

When one enters the world of personal growth and development, there are two questions that possess great power for the individual and others with whom he/she chooses to interact.

1.  Who am I?

2.   Who are you?

The question of ‘who am I’ represents the structure that we choose to build on our personal foundation.  Studying ourselves gives us the answers to the unique and personal questions of who is the unique and special individual we are.

When we look at ourselves in great depth, we often find that many of us have structured our lives around the perception that our lives are basically a sense of being or around the perception of doing.

One of the basic choices we make is whether we wish to build our lives based on the foundation of seeing life as a gift.  We are entitled to this gift by being born and have only to receive it and use it for the time we live on this earth. 

This means that we are of value as humans just because we exist, not on anything that we do.  Of the two basic choices, this perception tends to be the most difficult for most humans to truly believe about themselves. 

It does not take long in our conversations for other people to see whether we value ourselves for being human, or whether we see our lives as only having value for doing the tasks, goals and accomplishments of our life journey.  One can choose to value him/herself only for what they DO rather than just being a human being.

If we listen to what we say to others about ourselves, we find that frequently the predominate talk is about our behavior, about what we have accomplished.  For some, just being alive is not enough to merit our own appreciation of self and certainly does not impress very many other people. 

For many in our society, it is only by doing tasks and meeting goals that they can find value in themselves.  These people find it difficult to retire without remaining ‘active’ even as they need to work at playing or rest from vacations.

The power to ask for the truth in how we value ourselves by asking ‘who am I’ can be just as powerful when we take the risks and ask a similar question to another: ‘who are you?’  We can see by another’s response how they have structured their lives to meet the demands of the society in which they live.  Or they can they take the value of just being human as the ultimate gift we each receive.   

Usually individuals are seeking to be heard and understood by others.  If one chooses to listen, people will tell you where they tend to fit on the BEING vs. DOING continuum.  If emotionally healthy, they may have found a way to balance the two views in our human 'gray zone' rather than black/white.

Like most aspects of studying personal growth, these two points are opposite ends of a continuum.   For those familiar with the bell-shape curve, we know that there are very few instances of one being at either extreme.  Most of us have the characteristics of both perceptions of being and doing.  We tend to be more comfortable living our lives with one trait more than another and our culture certainly gives most of its encouragement to those who DO.

With our question of ‘who am I?’ as a guideline, we can have a positive beginning of personal growth in learning more about ourselves.  With the ‘who are you?’ question, we open the foundation for mutual exchange of honest and intimate dialogue.

As always, the personal choices we make to manage our life growth are ours.

Comments welcome.     Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

Giving Living A Bad Name

 How fortunate we all are to have this gift of life!!  Regardless of our personal beliefs on the source of this gift, the reality is that each of is given this gift with a diverse range of skills, talents, assets and liabilities. 

Since life is a gift freely given where we have only to receive it, the individual choices we make to manage this gift are our own unique way of demonstrating our personal values.  Many around us make similar and/or different choices from the ones we make.

Some of us will take this gift of life as a given; there is nothing special about being alive.  Some may even come to believe that we are entitled to be alive and just muddle through waiting for life to give us more treasure since we must have more to be a ‘winner’. 

Some may conclude that giving this gift to them, as an individual was some type of mistake.  They see nothing to be given or gained from making choices that could bring positive changes to their lives.  They see themselves as powerless and usually are lonely.  Keep putting one foot in front of another with painful endurance until the journey's end is reached is often this person’s only goal.

There are many, many ways that an individual can choose to make his/her gift of life into a negative experience.  This blog will focus on three of the most common that probably are easily recognizable in our society and are open to the choice of alternation.

One of the first behaviors that we tend to learn early in childhood is developing a case of “the shoulds”.  Our society mandates that there are certain thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are acceptable and must always be done if one wishes to be ‘normal’ and live with other people.

As a former teacher, I may have tended to take over where the parents left off with developing the value of living the ‘shoulds’.  I had the support of the person’s peer group, social organizations, churches, etc.  Most people knew what they should or should not be doing by the time they became adults and enter the labor force.  These adult groups will teach them any ‘shoulds’ they may have missed.

How much of our life is wasted trying to meet the expectations of the ‘shoulds’ that we place on ourselves and by others!   The biggest loss tends to be realization of our personal power to chose and re-decide our life patterns.

When I think of labeling behavior as an obstacle to appreciating the gift of life, I sometimes wonder if we live in some type of giant file drawer where we are categorized by the many, many labels that society has given us to wear.

After giving all the label of human and the gift of life, we are then sorted into the many categories that start with male and female.  We are then labeled by age, race, religion, income, nationality, height, weight, size and type of housing, education, intelligence, social ability, health, mode of transportation we use, family history, friends, cleanliness, orderliness, clothing, food choices, introvert/extrovert, technical aptitude, etc.   The list is endless but they all affect how we decide to manage our gift of life in both positive and negative ways.  We make these labels real and usually grow to believe that we cannot re-label ourselves or find new choices in which labels we wish to use during our Life Journey.

The third way that can tarnish the gift of life and give living a bad name is the process of blame.  There are many who decide early in life that whenever something goes wrong in their world, their first goal is to find someone or something to blame.

During my early days of teaching it seemed to me that we were encouraging and rewarding the behavior of having our students find and/or create some way to avoid responsibility for something that they might or might not have done.  I lost count of how many times I heard myself say “what is your excuse this time”?  It seemed that I was encouraging the students to find new ways to blame a situation on another or be creative in building an excuse which was unique and would allow the student to avoid accepting any responsibility for their behavior.

As an adult I hear my fellow adults carry out the results of this early training.  Parents blame their kids.  Kids blame their parents and almost any adult.  Employees blame their bosses.  Employers blame the poor behavior of employees.  Individuals blame the government.  Government blames citizen apathy.  Farmers blame the weather.  The poor blame the rich for having so much wealth while the rich blame the poor for not doing something to make money while they pay the taxes. 

As with any of these games to avoid taking responsibility for our own choices, we can easily play any of these three perspectives in deciding whether we want to maximize this wonderful gift of life.

With positive management we can decide we want to have life be a process of minimizing the mental games of shoulds, labeling and blaming.  Or, we can choose to utilize these negative perspectives and give our living a bad name.  As always, we can make any choice we wish.  What a wonderful gift for this Life Journey we have!

Comment welcome.  Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com

There Are No Trees At Sea

 One of the first things that a person is likely to notice while sailing on a ship is that the view of the sea is the same in every direction.

There are no guideposts to give us a sense of direction like there are while we are on land where we have signs, roads, mountains, trees, buildings, etc.  Since we live most of lives on land, most of us develop a dependency on these guideposts that society and common sense places on us to follow so that we do not 'get lost' using our social graces.

Therefore, most of us develop a dependency on external signs to give direction to our lives.   We depend on parents, friends, school, church, employers, media, etc. to assist us as we build an external-based life compass. 

Few make the effort to learn how to develop and live by a complementary individual internal compass.  Many do not know that developing an inner order is even possible.  We have few human models on how to build one.

As we develop our life compass, we produce ‘tapes’ where external guidelines become internalized with beliefs about self and our world.  We easily develop an internal image that is the same as the one developed for us by our outside world.

It is often said, “children are the world’s best recorders, but the world’s worst interpreters on what they hear.”  Children tend to take whatever they hear or see as being true without any process of testing the information for validation.  Most adults play these tapes of self-image learned as children and adolescents over and over without any effort to test and validate them.

I recall one time when our family went to Myrtle Beach, SC, where we visited the House of Mirrors.  Some mirrors gave the appearance of a person being very tall while others projected one being very short.  Other mirrors projected an image of one being very thin while another projected one being very fat.

 

Life is often like this.  The person in front of these mirrors was the same; only the mirror was different.  Yet, many choose to select an image that conforms to their own self-image based on what others have told them.  In a country which is obsessed with looks and images, it is easy to see how many people can develop negative physical views of themselves by depending on the images that others (mirrors) give to us regardless of their validity.

Developing an internal compass is a life-long process of receiving data from outside of one’s self and learning to listen closely to how it fits internally through validation processing.  Most of us start with ‘being at sea and accepting that there are no trees or other signs to help guide us’. 

We can develop our own internal compass through discovering, questioning, confronting, experimentation, research, observation, exploration, clarification, redefining, etc.  Personally, I believe that this emotional labor is far more difficult that any physical labor we may confront.  It can give us a valid reason to avoid the process of developing an internal compass, one that is comfortable with the sameness of having fewer external guidelines such as the sameness of the horizon at sea.

As with everything in our lives with the possible exception of the gift of life itself, we pay some type of price for all that we choose to do.  There are no freebies.  Yet, out external-focused life often teaches us the opposite.

Our desire to be ‘normal’ and live comfortably and safely with others is one of the major obstacles to developing an internal value and guidance compass for our life journey.  It takes lots of personal courage to look inward and challenge the basics we have been taught  to determine who and what we are by so many forces in our life.

For example:  we are confronted with the ‘myth of the good norm’ where we or someone we care about believes that there is only one way which is best for all to believe and behave.  Developing an internal compass asks us to confront this and other myths to determine whether they truly fit into our lives.  After all of the 'practice' we have in being 'normal', it sure can be difficult to see alternatives. 

We can learn that there is no one way for all, especially if we can avoid being too close to see, hear and value differences.  An example can be to challenge very prevalent perfectionist expectations in self and others.  With a great deal of work and effort, we can confront and challenge the guidelines that society gave to us as we grew up and choose a degree that works uniquely for our personal needs. 



Developing both an internal and external compass is positive mental health.
Yet, we know that changing from our excessive dependence on external guidelines for living is very difficult.   Psychologists will tell us that most of us will avoid change at almost any price until the psychic pain we are paying for the status quo becomes so strong that we are finally willing to take the risks that come with change.

We as adults, regardless of our age, now have the choice of whether we wish to begin our own personal and unique internal compass development for whatever remains of our life journey.   Just like being at sea with no trees or guidelines, we are free to go in whatever direction(s) we wish.

Yes, there will be many prices to be paid for making these internal-compass choices.   Only each of us as individuals can decide IF it is worth the prices we are asked to pay to ourselves and others.

Comment Welcome.   Email:  silverchatline@gmail.com