The reflective essay I'm writing to you has been grafted from a real life recorded counselling session which was undertaken in Bendigo, Victoria. I obtained my counsellor, Patrick, through the Bendigo Health Services. I found the process of obtaining his services a little arduous as my preconception of accessing such services was one of a more prompt nature. Patrick returned my call. He was very inquisitive about my reasons for seeking counselling, and I felt pressured immediately to enter into issues as I wasn't in a private setting when I received the call. He was very thrown when I described my motivation toward seeking counselling was brought about by my studying with ACAP, and to hear I would like to record the session. Although, he hadn't heard of such practices he kindly agreed to see me. At first I believed I could partake in a cordial type of counselling session which would allow me to experience first-hand as any client would the counselling experience while confining the issues to be addressed to those I selected, yet Patrick expressed a strong doubt in being able hold a session without meaningful counselling taking place. He also mentioned that the session might be too personal to use in an assignment. I was booked in to see him on Tuesday, 23rd of March, 2010. I made it to the offices for the appointment and after introductions were over I was invited into a cubical for the session. I was feeling anxious and a little bit nervous. I did not really want to share anything personal with him but I was also intent on applying myself, and on having an honest session. He began with some questions about my present life situation, asking basic questions about my psychology course, where I was living both presently and previously, my family life, social connections and hobbies before asking me for some back ground information on my upbringing. Although I was still nervous, talking to my counsellor was becoming easier. Patrick used a variety of listening cues such as yeah, uh-huh, ok, and combines these with appropriate pitch, rate, and tonal inflections. This was probably to encourage me to continue speaking by way of empathizing thorough understanding and demonstating active listening, showing that he was following me (Egan, 2007). While I found making such personal self disclosures disconcerting with a person I had met only moments earlier at the reception desk, I thought back on this and realised the nessessity of this information how imperative for effective counselling. It is my belief that Patrick was attempting to form a working hypothesis of my cultural views. This is important in order to adjust his communication style to suit my ideologies (Devito, 2009). Patrick referred to my past on several occasions throughout the session while infering a possible connection to my present problems, those of motivation in completing the course and my tendency to move on when the going gets tough. In referring to my unstable housing and accompanying frequent change to the schools' I had attended: overall it's been a bit chaotic, you've moved around a fair bit, your contact with your biological father has sort of been on and off and it hasn't really been settled. This brought me to think, however briefly, that my desire to change my circumstances might have been ingrained through habits of shifting throughout my life, but instead of discussing this issue I decided to talk about my feelings of abandonment the way I see it is that my father left when I was young. Patrick allowed the conversation to flow freely by not interupting me and by continuing the new line of conversation, asking questions and paraphrazing the immediate content as it would arrise. I felt he had been respectful to me in allowing me to avoid the more obvious issue, in a way I don't think I really wanted to talk about that. This is interesting because I know I deliberately avoided making the connection between my past and present behaviour and inadvertantly chose a more difficult issue. I wonder if Patrick had actually guided me to the issue of my parents separation and maybe launched from my unstable upbringing. At the time it seemed like an over-simplification of something I seen as more complicated, now I think that as a behavioural trait, he had made a strong and

valid point. None the less, facing this as a such a prominent weakness and causitive to so many situations with similar outcomes I know that this issue needed to be confronted. While I did avoid giving this weight at the time, his respectful honesty empowered me with a valuable outside perspective. Throughout the session, Patrick would make observations which would draw me outside my comfort zone, seeking to tie particular issues together. Patrick: I'm not hearing about any human contact and from your past experience you find that difficult, I guess. That's a challenge isn't it? And from your past experience, you've used escape type behaviours. I replied: When dad left (and with mum not wanting to associate or socialise aswell) I had almost no social integration or even really any contact with any other family members (t23:57). Patrick avoids picking any particular details and uses another generalization whilst keeping to the themes surrounding my patterns of learned habit (using an empathic highlight) he continues: there's no groundness anywhere (t- 25:37). I had been feeling unsettled throughout the entire session, I think I was suffering some anxiety confronting bigger issues like this is something that doesn't occur all too frequently, obviously a bigger issue is something which is ongoing so it would be expected. This illustrates how seemlessly a counsellor can return to an issue which has been avoided without disrupting the flow of the conversation. Having an unstable upbringing has the obvious lack of social integration that comes from being well established, instead of pushing the issue of being without a father, and of constant moving, he moves on to something more practical social skills, and socializing. I express that interacting is a difficult process for me, that I believe I might have autistic qualities that are less than beneficial. Patrick I'm not into diagnosing or labeling. I'm a counsellor. When you mentioned writing, did you say that you wanted to do good, or be of use, or not?? I wanna be a writer, yeah- and that would be for the greater good? in terms of me having free time, that would be good. I don't think free time's good for you (laughs) the problem with writing is you have to read just as much aswell, which just means that I have the lifestyle, but it doesn't bring money in, unless I get published, then I can't feel like a nobody well, nobody is a nobody and then I can do what I like then there's also a social responsibility in there aswell. At this point I became confused about what social responsibilities I might have. Patrick begins to talk about a 'spiritual connection' and describes life as a journey more than a series of outcomes. This is difficult to understand and I feel like Patrick should be able to fix my problems for me. Patrick considered the problems as being outside the scope of one session as he referred to the close of the session and I asked if we should book another one I don't think we can come up with huge changes in one session, today and on hearing my suggestion for another session we could book you in again for another session next week; the other option would be, I'm going to recommend that you see a psychologist. Is that's something you would do?, yeah I'm happy with that (39:30). Patrick and I talk about the methods of obtaining one through a referal from my GP, the expenses involved and so forth. I was feeling a little bit dejected because I wasn't expecting to be sent away to see someone else, especially on hearing about a psychologist as it was now more about my mental state than finding simple cognitive weaknesses that might be rectified without an advanced professional. You talked about maybe having some autistic traits, and that you haven't been motivated recently, he continued, ellaying my concerns and bringing me around to recognising the importance knowing with certainty whether I have such a condition. Since leaving the session I put the recording aside and was reluctant to listen to it again. A week later, Patrick called me again to check if we had made another appointment as I had expressed interest in another meeting. The call was nice and reminded me to make a

point of seeing my GP who was an hour from both Bendigo and where I was living at the time. I did see my GP and on calling the psychologist was baffled again with another delay he was on holidays for the next two weeks. I left a message on his answering machine and received his return call only a week and a half later for an appointment which was kept for Tuesday, the 20th of April. My psychologist was even further away by another hour. The session shared some similarities to the one I had had with Patrick. In many ways there was also a residual effect from this session, namely that after the session I went online and began to search online, the types of autism and even took some tests which would 'score' me well within autistic spectrum disorder, I got a score of 33, slightly greater than the eighty percentile margin. My psychologist, David, also rebooked me and explained that such diagnosis would usually be undertaken by a team of specialists. I am to see him again on the 4th of May. I feel a sort of obligation to call Patrick in order to let him know how things have turned out, on the other hand our relationship is purely professional which makes me recognise the nessessity for detachment as a counsellor and the importance of avoiding co-dependancy every client. I believe this is due to thinking of Patrick as a sort of friend who I know or something, possibly because I have only ever disclosed personal information to people I feel would care to hear the outcome from the session. Besides this, he had left me the option to revisit him after seeing a psychologist (if I chose to), this is a very professional offer in my opinion as there would not be a need to become comfortable with another counsellor. Toward the end of my session with the psychologist, I was given a plain test with scales ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, and told that we would go over the results in the following session. When Patrick was finishing up he had prompted me to think over some things after a nice sort of auxillary feed forward: I like my clients to leave with something to change or to think about, or to do. I suppose there's contradictions in what you've said today on the one hand you say that you're lazy and yet you have so much perseverance. If you were to quit today, I reckon you'd just sit around doin nothin, but you can't do that you just get busy with something (t- 35:15). I get turned off quickly then, like maybe I only like the good bits and find something else when I find it isn't fun anymore its like I don't like the hard parts. Once again, there really wasn't enough time to fully discuss everything. Patrick continued: Yeah, it's a classic fear of success you know I could agree with you and say that you are lazy and shun responsibilty and yet you've started another course, and you've turned up today. So on one hand you're too hard on yourself, on the other hand you could be firmer on yourself. Oh you know, if you don't feel like doing something, I want you to do it in spite of how you feel. And I think with obsession, you need to be controlled (t- 38:45). Here, Patrick had brought up inconsistancy in my reasoning, clarifying the problem I had presented earlier. While Patrick had encouraged me throughout the session to come to my own resolution he had also offered somewhat opinionated observations. I wonder if the session would have been more effective if this element hadn't been present. Overall the session had provided some very unexpected residual effects that are continuing to help me today. If I am diagnosed with autism, I stand a far better chance of dealing with my short comings more effectively and I suppose this is the goal of a counsellor in bringing greater understanding to a client. David, G. (2010). Recorded real-life Counselling Session (23rd, March; 2010). VIC: Author.

Devito, J, A. (2009). The Interpersonal Communication Book (12th. Ed.). Boston [MA]: Pearson Higher Education. Egan, G. (2007). The Skilled Helper (8th. Ed.). Belmont [CA]: Thomson Brooks/Cole.