This morning, after 14 months of working virtually, I met a client and we worked face-to-face. I had made Covid-safe considerations, we sat 2 meters apart and the furniture was sanitised, we used hand sanitiser and wore masks until we were seated. Then we could be us, two humans, sharing a space, and working to connect. I have missed the ritual of readying the room for my clients.
For me, counselling is ALL about the connections; me trying to get alongside and to really understand my clients by listening deeply and by making the space as safe as I can; my clients working hard to elucidate and excavate their emotions. Us both holding up each experience, feeling, and event, and examining it in all its glory and ugliness, the comfort and sheer discomfort. We share it.
During lockdown it has also been about another type of connection. When technology failed it caused a real rupture in the moment, and it fell to me as the counsellor to work quickly to repair the rupture to the best of my ability. The frustration I have felt when my internet has dropped out at exactly the wrong moment has been immense, and then to know that it is my responsibility to ‘right the bike and start pedalling again’, has sometimes felt very heavy indeed. That is what we are trained for, being able to hold that space and keep it safe and sacred, despite the storm that rages around, and sometimes within, our clients.
Working virtually has definitely had its positives though; for clients who wish to retain a sense of anonymity, it has been a soothing balm against a gaze, for those who are time poor, it has saved journey time, for those who value the sanctuary of their own space, it has provided just that. As a counsellor it has offered me opportunities to work with clients all over the United Kingdom. Telephone counselling also gives new meaning to working phenomenologically, that is “intense concern about the way the world appears to the person experiencing the world” (Moran, 2000), as I am literally relying on the words of my clients.
Face to face counselling allows for us to inhabit the same space for the therapeutic hour, lockdown has proven that that space, if agreeable to my clients, need not have physical boundaries. It has allowed us to expand our horizons, and for clients to have more choice in how they would like to work. I have developed rituals for virtual working, my clients won’t know, but there is always a scented candle burning, I spend time adjusting lighting and making things ‘just so’, and I sometimes wear slippers!
