I'm more calm today

thanks to some time to reflect and a good chat with my bestest friend.

Bundled-in with yesterday's concerns about justifying myself to a counsellor were more pressing questions about the suitability of my care for the client. I've decided to withdraw service to allow her to focus purely on her group therapy. As even as an amateur, I have a duty to refer a client on to their GP or mental health professional if I am unable to provide the level of care they need. Therefore, I'll meet with her as planned on Thursday and say that if her counsellor has concerns about the suitability of my service, I must listen and decide whether it'd be best if I ended my involvement. I'll ask her to talk the situation through with her counsellor and offer one final session afterward if she feels she wants talk through the end of our work.

This freaks me out a bit, to be honest. I remember saying a couple of weeks ago that I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this client - I will learn to listen to these little signals in the future. Without going into detail, she certainly needs more care than I can provide, a higher level of attention and for much longer than the six or eight walks I'd planned. I'm a little concerned what her reaction will be when I tell her I'm ending my involvement, but hopefully she'll understand if I can describe my reasoning in an effective way.

There's two major lessons I've learned here. The first is that the charity will provide only an exploratory route in to counselling, or a post-counselling support service. This means that we won't take on clients who are already in the system unless they've been referred to us by their current mental health professional. This stops our work being a distraction from proper focussed counselling, and stops me treading on anyone's toes.

The second is that I will try to ensure my care doesn't become too open or encourage possible friendships. It's part of my nature to be supportive and there if someone needs me, and that's been to my detriment with this client in particular. I'm getting too many texts and I'm feeling a little bombarded. In future, all communication will be by phone or email during reasonable hours, I won't be friends with clients on Facebook and I'll discourage communication by text other than confirmation of walks the day before a meeting.

I firmly believe every cloud has a silver lining. I learn something new every time I reflect on the charity and my skills, and that's definitely positive.  I have a feeling, however, this cloud holds a couple more rain showers before it'll let the sun shine through.