6.2 Counselling for Toads

1. Understanding What Counselling Is

Counselling is a voluntary process. Both the counsellor and the client participate voluntarily; it is a collaboration.

Counsellor: generally uses a listening mode; teacher: uses an explanatory mode.

Some concepts that arise during counselling may seem foolish, illogical, or even frightening. The more a concept can help a person explore deeply into themselves, the more likely it is to trigger strong resistance.

2. Exploring Why Recent Events Led to Depression

Recent events caused you to hit rock bottom and fall into the Child ego state.

2.1. Child Ego State

It is related to childhood experiences. Basic emotions + experiences -> behavior, which develops into behavioral patterns. When similar situations occur in adulthood, the corresponding behavioral patterns may be triggered reflexively.

It consists of two parts:

1. Natural Child: joy and affection, anger, sadness, and fear
2. Adapted Child: adjusting yourself to adapt to your parents’ moods

2.1.1. How Children Express Anger

Strong ––––––––––––––––––––––– Weak

Rebellion > tantrums > sulking > willfulness > gloominess > procrastination > annoyance > withdrawal

2.2. Recalling Childhood Experiences

Parents, paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents, etc.

If your parents hurt you, because they were so powerful and you were unable to resist, you could only submit. This includes behaviors such as agreeing with them (accepting their ideas and doing what they said), pleasing them (making them satisfied with me and proud of me), apologizing, and depending on them (the essence of growing up is breaking this dependence and becoming independent).

3. Exploring Why a Friend Likes to Blame Others

3.1. Parent Ego State

Everyone has a Parent ego state. It contains all the values and moral standards we learned from our parents from birth onward, giving us standards for judging right and wrong in life.

1. Self-criticism
2. Critical Parent

4. Adult State

Act rationally without being trapped by childhood emotions or the voices of parents from the past; the latter two are more like conditioned reflexes.

Only in this state can we learn new things. For example, blaming others is something done from the Child state, while the Adult state means taking responsibility for yourself.

5. Reviewing Your Life

Look objectively at past events: how each event happened and what impact it had.

6. Life Positions

Everyone has a different childhood. Childhood experiences lead us to form an initial view of the world. For example, at age four or five, we answer two questions:

1. How do I see myself? Am I OK?
2. How do I see other people? Are they OK?

This forms four life positions:

1. I’m OK, you’re OK
2. I’m OK, you’re not OK
3. I’m not OK, you’re OK
4. I’m not OK, you’re not OK

Whichever position we occupy in childhood, we may continue to behave and respond according to that position, confirming it through a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Life positions are connected with life games.

1. I’m OK, you’re OK. A lifelong commitment rather than a static state; it is a dynamic process of trusting yourself and others.
2. I’m OK, you’re not OK. I am excellent and everyone else is worse than me.
   1. The extreme behavior is murder.
      1. I’ve got you, you bad person.
      2. Why do you always disappoint me?
      3. How dare you?
   2. In the Critical Parent state.
3. I’m not OK, you’re OK. I am inferior and everyone else is better than me.
   1. The life games played from this position can lead to depression; the extreme behavior is suicide.
      1. I’m miserable.
      2. Poor, weak me.
      3. Love me no matter what I do.
   2. In the sad Child state.
4. I’m not OK, you’re not OK.

The client -> counsellor relationship: dependence -> counter-dependence -> independence.

During counselling, learning does not rely only on reason; emotional experience is also needed. The latter is also called emotional intelligence:

1. Independence. Strong self-awareness and understanding of your own emotions.
2. Emotional control. Ability to manage emotions and recover from sadness and misfortune.
3. Self-discipline. Ability to control impulses and delay gratification, avoiding rash decisions and inappropriate behavior.
4. Empathy. Understanding and responding to another person’s emotions.

References

Counselling for Toads (Douban)