7 Things I Hate About the Profession I Love

1. People don’t understand what I do

No really. They totally don’t understand. And yeah, okay, maybe the same thing could be said about almost any profession. But it’s different for counselors. It really is. We’re the type of people who strive for understanding in every aspect of our lives. We want to understand our clients, ourselves, the minds of the people on those shows about hoarding, everything. We want to know what caused Robert to develop his defense mechanisms and why Betsy has an oral fixation. Most of all, we want people to understand us. And we want them to want to understand us. That’s quite a different story than the plumber whose wife doesn’t know a socket wrench from a flat-head screwdriver, and also doesn’t even know if a plumber actually uses such equipment. Do they? I mean, I have no idea, but at least I know the names of some tools, right? Anywhoo, this leads me right into….



2. I can never truly make them understand without throwing my ethics out the window

The thing about the plumber is that if it truly broke his heart that his wife didn’t understand what he did, he could just pull her under that sink with him. He can have her right there, hanging onto his every word as he dutifully plunges a clog out of a rich man’s toilet for a nominal fee. Whereas with a counselor, there is pretty much no (ethical) way to show the people you care about what exactly it is that you do all day. Well, I suppose we could show them some counselor ed tapes, but we all know how realistic those are. Counseling is one of those things that you can never get a grasp on by simply having it explained to you. And this is probably why, when it comes time to explain it to someone, we discover we’re suddenly much too exhausted to attempt that again and we settle for some lame approximation of our profession followed by “it’s complicated”. Chances are that because people don’t and can’t really understand what a counselor does, then they are probably going to think something along the lines of #3.


3. When people know you’re a counselor, they always think that you are counseling them.

I swear, from the moment I entered grad school people suddenly got paranoid and started accusing me of constantly counseling them. If I did as much counseling as other people think I do, I would be making so much overtime (that is, if I got paid at all at this point). But seriously, to those people who think that I had the skills to counsel as early as I started receiving the accusations: thank you, your confidence in my abilities flatters me. I’d love to see what you’d think if I actually laid it on you at this point. It seems to me that people are confusing basic listening skills with counseling. In fact, I was talking to a guy online (ONLINE!) who said that it seemed like I was counseling him. When I asked why, he responded with “well, you were listening and it seemed like you really cared”. Last time I checked, this was called being a friend, and if it’s the first time anyone’s ever listened to you, then perhaps we should go ahead and schedule our next session. On the opposite end of the spectrum…..


4. Those who don’t already think you are counseling them want you to please start.

These people hear your profession and get those little cartoonish dollar signs in their eyes. Counselor in close physical proximity = free counseling! I haven’t had any of these encounters with strangers yet, but I’ve heard the horror stories (Fake airplane professions, anyone?) However, I have had a surprising number of friends and/or family members accost me in search of free services for themselves/their child/their cousin’s sister’s boyfriend’s roommate. I am well aware that some of these are in jest, and those are not the instances to which I am referring. No, I am talking about people who honest-to-goodness think that I can just sit down and counsel them while we’re sitting in Mickey D’s, despite the fact that they’ve known me since I was in diapers. But speaking of people who think they are being clever by trying to appropriate my services….


5. When you tell someone what you do, they inevitably respond: “Great, so you can fix/figure out/help institutionalize my husband/dog/mother-in-law.

This has to be one of my number one pet peeves of all time. ALL TIME. It annoys me so much that it makes me type in caps and incomplete sentences. And to top it all off, I’ve been hearing it for approximately the past 5 years. In the layman’s world, being an undergraduate psychology major qualifies you to “fix” people. To this I respond: If you think I’ve been able to fix you since I was 18 years old, then why in the world am I putting myself in so much debt to learn how to “fix” you now? Or maybe my annoyance over the issue is just because they’ve hit a sore spot that….


6. I can’t fix my clients.

Ok, I am aware of the fact that I just said I was annoyed by people thinking I can fix them and now I’m saying that I’m upset that I can’t. Shut up. And it’s not that I want to be a magical fairy and make all their problems disappear. It’s more like I want them to always be happy when they leave my presence. I (mistakenly) feel like an hour spent with me should change their entire perspective. If they were wracked with sobs when they came into the clinic, then they should be sobbing with joy by the time they leave because the work we did was so deep and amazing that they can’t help but see all their troubles in a different light, and their lives will be forever changed because of this. This sucks even more because not only is this what I want to do, but….


7. My clients often expect me to fix them.

That’s right. All these miracles running around in my head about how I’m going to change my client’s life? Well that’s what they think is going to happen too. And guess what does happen? I’ll give you a hint: not that. I can’t do it and then we both go home disappointed, despite the fact that our expectations are completely and utterly ridiculous. Let’s face it: deep down inside, most of us wish there were someone smarter than us who could come along and tell us all the answers to life’s questions (it’d be great if that person could write all my papers too). I guess next time a client looks at me and says “What do you think I should do?” I’ll look them in the eye and say: “Why you asking me? I can’t even successfully explain to others what I’m doing here; do you really want me screwing with your life?”


That’ll show ‘em.

How Counseling is like Prostitution

As I cursed my clients this morning for the sore throat I had received as a direct result of their presence in my life (I thought we weren’t supposed to accept gifts from clients, especially sucky gifts?), I thought of how much our profession really has in common with prostitution.  First and most obviously, our interactions have led to my contracting some sort of disease that they knowingly (but uncaringly) exposed me to.  Much like the male chauvinist who refuses to use a condom because he’s paying good money, my clients refuse to practice the common courtesy of not breathing on/near me, or better yet, staying home when they are diseased.

But the parallels don’t stop there.  After this realization, they just kept coming.  Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

We don’t know them, they don’t know us.  They walk into the brothel—I mean clinic—looking for a stranger to be intimate with.  Meanwhile, we are sitting in the back room waiting for someone to come and when no one does, we feel like there’s something wrong with us.  For prostitutes, maybe things are starting to sag, or their makeup is looking particularly drag-queenish today.  As counselors, we question our methods, our friendliness, or maybe our ability to remember to wear deodorant.

When our clients do show up, we awkwardly lead them down the hallway, while our forlorn friends who don’t have any clients watch on in a mixture of wistfulness and thankfulness.  We take them to a tiny, dimly lit room, surrounded by similar rooms where people are doing the exact same thing we’re about to do. We turn on a camera and urge them to forget it’s there.  We ask them, in a nutshell, what they want from us today.  And then we try to give it to them.

It starts out slow.  We both avoid eye contact, and sit too far away.  Sometimes they need a lot of encouragement that they are normal and its okay to use our services. Things build gradually, they begin to trust us and show us more of themselves.  We leave all our “clothes” on, while they are completely naked, because it isn’t about us, it’s about them.  Sometimes they try to uncover parts of us that they don’t need to see because they are insecure about being so exposed themselves.  We chastise and turn the focus back to them.

If things go well, the client finds their release in some form or another.  They often leave with a Cheshire cat grin on their face or maybe just in a state of contemplation after making sure we’ll be available the same time next week.  As soon as they’re gone, we collapse in our chairs, exhausted, and wishing we weren’t non-smokers.  Sometimes we feel like crying.  Five minutes later we start criticizing ourselves for all the wrong moves we made and planning how to do better next time.  Then we go back to the back room and wait for our next session while we regale our fellow counselors with our horror stories, and every once in a while, our triumphs.