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What's love got to do with it?
How Counsellors love clients
Richard Bracegirdle
Background and InspirationSome say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,And when I asked the man next door,
Who looked as if he knew,His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do
W.H.Auden (1999)
Background and Inspiration
“We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love, never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our love object or its love”
Freud, (1995, p733)
Design and Methodology
•4 respondents chosen from seven replying to advert in 'Therapy Today'•3 female/one male; white British; 30 to 50 age range•2 x person-centred; 2 x integrative•Unstructured, person-centred interviews•Research contract and informed consent•Interviews recorded and transcribed
Design and Methodology
• Qualitative and heuristic (Moustakas,1990)
• Affinity and phenomenological congruence with person-centred approach
• Non-linear process through heuristic research stages
• Individual depictions sent for feedback and validation
• Creative synthesis
FINDINGS
Idiosyncratic: 3 connected therapeutic love with personal faith and spirituality:
“I believe in a onenessof everything,
and I believe in a beauty..almost like a sixth sense
...and that's where I try to meet my clients...I'm at my best with clients then”
FINDINGS
Embodied: “I often feel it in my eyes and...I feel it...midway between my heart and
guts”
FINDINGS
Fluid in nature - “flow, stream, lagoon, flooding, washing, melting”
“almost like rocks in a stream maybe,that just slow that flow down a little
in response to whoever it is we may be with
...and I know that's part of my tentative way of being”
FINDINGS
Metaphysical - “peak” and “flow” experiences? (Maslow, 1968; Csikszentmihalyi, 1991)
“A sort of moving out of myself almosta sense of...
time kind of shrinking into a tiny little moment”
“It's just so fantastic; it's just so wonderful”
FINDINGS
Costly:
“But if I allow the flow out too quickly,that can leave me feeling drained at
times”
“It's sharpened everything for me...beyond counselling as well”
FINDINGS
A taboo on tenderness?
“and I just felt really hurtand really rejected”
“people can misunderstand and misconstrue:misconstrue when you're saying that you love
clients”
LIMITATIONS
• Scale• Modern, rather than post-modern• Criticized as encouraging self indulgence
and lack of objectivity (Etherington, 2005)
CONCLUSIONS
• Intrinsic, embodied, fluid in essence, rewarding and costly
• A responsible, ethical loving is desirable• Training to encompass a reflective
consideration of the topic• A half told story: research into clients'
experience considered essential
REFERENCES
• Auden.W.H. (1999) Tell me the Truth about Love, London, Faber and Faber
• Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1995) Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York, Harper Perrenial
• Etherington, K. (2005) Becoming a Reflexive Researcher, London, Jessica Kingsley
• Freud, S. Gay, P. (ed.) (1995) The Freud Reader, London, Vintage
• Maslow, A.H. (1968) Toward a Psychology of Being, New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold
REFERENCES (CONT'D)
• Moustakas, C.(1990) Heuristic Research. Design, Methodology and Applications, Newbury Park, Sage
