I could finally start a new course that suits my timetable. Introduction to counselling, I mean. Why am I taking that course? Well, I could actually settle for some other courses as long as they didn’t conflict my timetable. But counselling particularly interests me as it may help me improve my listening skills to listen to others and myself. We will see.

It almost didn’t happen. Lorraine said she would enable me to attend the classes in several conflicting weeks so that I would not have to disguise myself as a woman to take the course from the women’s centre although Lorraine was prepared to lend me some of her clothes. :) But still that I wasn’t able to catch the tutor for an interview could have caused me to miss this course. Despite my persistent attempts, he hadn’t phoned me back. To be frank, I took a little bit offence. And what could I expect from a person who even didn’t bother to respond to my messages? To my relief, at last he was kind enough to make a phone call to give me a specific time to see him so that I could start.

Maybe the tutor was actually not to blame for. Maybe he did try to reach me earlier. Maybe I was too quick to attempt to judge him. Anyway, in the first lesson he sounded experienced and knowledgeable enough to inspire confidence. It was nice of him to ask me if I could follow the course. Yes, his English was understandable to me. I hope I won’t experience much difficulty in terms of my English.

Code of Ethics and Practice for Counsellors were not very appealing to me. In fact, it was quite boring, I could say. I didn’t find anything particularly objectionable about the code. I thought I would generally take it for granted. Should I care about confidentiality? Should I not exploit my client? They could go without saying. It is common sense, isn’t it? But is what they call common sense means the same thing? And is it a universal source for right and wrong? Never mind. OK then, I don’t mind something written like that to tell counsellors what to do and what not to do.

I had thought about becoming a counsellor as a career before the tutor reminded us of the reality that the clients wouldn’t come to tell the counsellor how they enjoy living life as very happy individuals. They would come to give the counsellor their pain. That was one of the factors that would keep me away from working as a counsellor professionally. I think that doing this job all the time requires a very strong personality to cope with such a big pressure.

I didn’t think of what my fellow students’ race or ethnic origin could be. I didn’t know the fact that black and Asian people show less interest in counselling than white people do. However, it isn’t very surprising to me. The tutor’s assumption about close family ties sounds reasonable. I had come across statistics indicating that divorce rate in Asian communities in the UK was considerably less than white and black population. The reason may be similar.

I think I am the youngest student in the class. According to the course requirements, the age limit was 21. I suppose such a limitation is due to the assumption that counsellors are supposed to be mature and that how many years people have lived is expected to be a part of their mature attitudes towards people and life. (I had dinner in a Mediterranean restaurant, which says on the menu that they would welcome people aged 25 and over!) As a young person, participating in a kind of mature activity like counselling with elder people seems to give me a little proud.

I have to take two buses to get the college every Friday. I hope I will always be able to catch the first bus that passes from the bus stop in Wednesfield once in half an hour. Yet in my second week, I almost missed it. It was a relief to see 525 coming late. Well, to some extent. I hadn't completed my assignment. I wanted to have a copy of it to see how I would change, and to ask the questions to other people. (I hope there won’t be a copyright problem!) I thought the tutor had asked the students to bring it back after answering the questions. I misunderstood it. My hurry was in vain. Although I came to Walsall on time, I was almost late for the class because I was looking for a place to copy a sheet of paper. When we mentioned how we felt at that moment, I admitted that I was a bit annoyed myself. It is just waking up 10 minutes earlier than I normally do. It is a simple solution. I won't have to worry about running, puffing, catching buses, getting annoyed, telling off myself etc. Then why am I not always doing it as it should be?

We learnt about how to decorate the counselling room, how to sit, how to look, how to appear etc. I first thought that kind of stuff could have come later. On the other hand, I thought that now or later shouldn't be a big concern in a ten-week introductory course. Maybe what matters is that what was said was directly related to counselling. I found it a considerate thing to make sure that clients are put in a confident, safe, easy and comfortable situation.

When we practiced the class, the feedback I received from my fellow students made me realize again that I tend to smile a lot. In some circumstances, it is actually too much, I should imagine. No wonder I got abused on the bus some months ago. I should have suspected that it was me who was addressed, when the drunken guy said, "Stop laughing." After he put his hand on my shoulder saying, "Stop laughing." again, I looked myself in the window of the bus. I wasn't laughing at all, but I had a smile on my face, the existing effect of the nice evening with a friend. It should have made him even angrier to get the motive to hit me. I thought I had learnt my lesson from that incidence, but probably I haven't completely got it yet. It wouldn't be appropriate if I smiled when the client was telling a sad story, would it be?

Nodding. I do it a lot, too. Not necessarily in a counselling situation. (As the codes of ethics and practice require an explicit agreement from both the client and the counsellor to call the conversation counselling, I have never given a counselling anyway.) Is it good to nod? I guess it depends. We may find out soon. Nevertheless, I saw Carl Rogers nodding and humming a lot. Just like me! When I saw him listening to the client, I said to myself, 'Hey, he is doing more or less what I am doing in my everyday life. And he is considered as a great listener. Wow, that is to say...' I was delighted to discover that.

As the storyteller, I told the listener one of my holidays to Wales with my host family. Before I got to the holiday bit, I had spent more than half of my supposed time just talking about the fact that Lorraine had not mentioned I was invited and how I felt about that. What I am saying is that I have some difficulty to get to the point when I talk. I should be able to keep it short and straight. When I thought about clients' story-telling ways, I considered myself as more like those who tell their story fluently. But now when I re-think about it, I see that it isn't actually that easy. Do clients make a plan, preferably a written draft, about how they would tell the counsellor their story? I guess I would do that if I went there to talk about something specific. I suppose it would be wise of me to prepare what I want to say in advance instead of rambling on and sort of wasting my time.

How do I feel when people are angry? When we practiced in the class, I tried to answer that question. After I talked, I thought about it once again. It occurred more clearly to me that I tend to act as a victim particularly if the angry person has come across as threatening to me. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield says most people have one dominant control drama. The book categorises basically four types of people: intimidator, interrogator, aloof and poor me (victim). From this point of view, when people are angry, and if I perceive them as intimidators, I think I would probably behave as though I appeal to the mercy. My instant reaction could be to say something like, "I haven't done anything to you." In my childhood, that kind of reaction of me was more obvious and intensive. I suppose acting as a weak and helpless victim should have harmed me emotionally more than any actual physical damage which could have happened.

I have always hated intimidators who threaten, aggressively behave, use violence, physically and verbally abuse, give fear, and don't give a damn what's going inside me. And although my brain is not busy with them as long as I don't confront them, I still hate them. I think I haven't directed the same hatred to myself, but I have been unhappy with myself for being too cowardly. I wish I had fought in the streets since childhood so that life could have hardened me. Maybe some sort of desensitisation would have occurred. When I look back from this moment of my life, I say to myself I would happily see them as learning opportunities if I had experienced some hardship of life, especially confrontation with the beasts, bullies and baddies.

Alan pointed out that using the pronoun you instead of I is a sort of shifting experience to others. He also tried to encourage the students to use I instead of you. I was already aware of that. His attempt to correct a student's use of the pronoun you seemed to me a bit futile. The words people choose to use may be a stubborn habit that is hard to remove even with constant conscious effort. It should be quite difficult to change the way people speak after they have kept talking in the same way for many years.

"Some people sometimes..." I find that kind of thinking ideal. To me, it goes without saying. When I make assumptions, I often find it very difficult to generalize. I try to avoid using words such as everybody, nobody, always, never. If I don't have any statistical evidence, even using 'most people' assumption sounds unfair to me. I think that when I dare to generalize, I should at least clearly state that what I am saying is my own personal opinion. In our case, setting up sentences like, "Clients feel that..." seems to invade a kind basic principle, so I should avoid that.

One of the assumptions that Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) suggests is that people reflect their primary representational system in their speech as well as in their body language. That idea doesn't seem to fit me exactly. As a speaker of two languages, I realize that my choice of words mainly doesn't come from what a part of the theory claims. For example, in English I often say, "I see" in the sense of "I understand". But in Turkish, I mostly use "I understand" instead of "I see". In my vocabulary, some ideas or experiences sound interesting in English, but they tend to look interesting when I switch to Turkish. As far as I can see, I use what I use because some words are simply easy to say for me. When I say, "I see", I use just one syllable. If I preferred to use Turkish equivalent of how something sounds instead of how it looks, I would have to use a long phrase. Consequently, I think that my choice of words doesn't reveal whether I am a visual, auditory or kinesthetic person.

When I pretended to be the zombie listener, I couldn't keep a straight face. Nor could I refrain myself from actually listening to what the speaker was saying. When I was the speaker, I found myself trying to get attention of the zombie listener. I could still talk as if the listener were really listening. I think it didn't give me a real life experience because I knew it was a kind of game. In fact, in my everyday life I realize that if people whom I consider worthy don't listen to me when I talk, I often feel annoyed, hurt or resentful.

At last, I did it. I had told myself I would never be late in this course. But at the end of the day, what I worried happened to me. Finally, I managed to be late for 45 minutes. How on earth did I take the wrong bus? What a stupid mistake! I know everyone does make mistakes. I know to err is human. Still I can't be carefree. Should I be? Maybe not. If I don't worry about anything, how can I improve myself? So a little worry is not bad, I suppose. What is important is that I learn from my mistakes. Whenever you fall, pick up something!

Alan said that we often push things down. When similar events happen, similar emotions get back. Do I experience that? I don't remember anything that could be an example of the theory. Maybe it happens to me unconsciously; therefore, I am not aware of it. I try to see what is told in the class in my life. Sometimes, like this case, I don't find what is supposed to be. Which doesn't necessarily mean that the assumption is wrong. Maybe it doesn't have to be valid for everybody. People are different, aren't they? Maybe it is there, but I haven't realized it yet. But it seems to me that the subconscious assumption is too powerful. It could explain virtually everything. You could hardly refute it. You may say, "But I can't see any obvious specific connection in terms of cause and effect. And I don't feel that way." In response to this argument, proponents of the-subconscious-is-the-real-king theory may say, "You don't realize what is really going on. You are not aware of it, but it affects you subconsciously."

The assumption is that we are carrying uncompleted gestalts. We need to complete that. Yes, I think so. Particularly when I don't tell people something emotional, those unspoken words remain inside me. If an unwelcome feeling comes up because of a person, I usually find it very relieving to talk to the person who caused me to feel that way if the person is suitable enough to talk such matters. (Lorraine, my host family, has recently been my victim in that sense!)

Alan said the counselling skills we are learning in the course are easy. Anybody can learn them. It is just about practice. It seems so to me as well. I think I can do counselling. Yes, I am able to do that. But I don't think I would do it professionally. It would be gloomy to listen to people's problems all the time. Besides, I would probably feel bad if my counselling didn't work. Maybe I can use the skills just in my everyday life.

We were asked to write down five good and five bad points about ourselves in terms of communication skills we are learning. I could find four good and four bad points at the time of writing them in the class. My good points were active listening, sitting in silence, reading body language and acting confidently. Actually, I don't consider myself excellent about these things, but I didn’t find any better ones. My bad points were finding correct words, speaking fluently, being concise in telling a story and using my voice. The first three bad points seems to be, to some extend, related to English. I think I am a bit better in those points when I speak Turkish rather than English. I think the last point is about giving an excited, high-pitched voice instead of a calm, deep voice. I would feel better if could change that.

Alan said the change has to come from the clients themselves. I can't change others. If I change myself, they may have to change themselves to adapt the new me. An example of this was saying no. Yes, I think I can see how changing myself could change others. However, dealing with this example, the change they experience may be peculiar to me. I mean if I started to say no to them, their behaviour could change towards me, but they would probably look for someone else to milk, which wouldn't matter to me as changing others should be none of my business unless it affects me.

Alan held normal healthy bereavement could take 2 years. I haven't experienced any bereavement. Nobody very close to me has died yet. If they did, I feel that I wouldn't be affected too much. The last time when I lost someone close to me was when my two maternal uncles died last year. I had some good memories with them, but we didn't have really close relationships. I could say I didn't get upset because of the news. (Well, I could 'say' it, but I never did. The relatives, especially my mum, wouldn't want to hear that fact, so I didn't mention how I felt. If they wouldn't accept my feelings as they are, and would advice me how I should feel, why would I bother to tell them?)

Alan claimed most people have shit in their life, but only a few people go to counselling. Others try to cope with their problems by different ways like arguing or drinking. Yet most of us could get benefit from counselling. What do I do to cope with my emotions? When I experience unpleasant emotions, I try several ways. I sometimes try to understand my feelings by attempting to analyse connections between my thoughts, feelings and behaviours. I see that just to be aware of what is going on inside me often makes me feel better. If the feeling stems from a person, I may talk to that person so that I can feel relief. Sometimes (nowadays rarely) it comes to a point that I can do nothing but weeping in a silent corner. Although I have managed to harden myself a bit in the process of overcoming social phobia (that's my ex-friend), I think I'm still too sensitive. I think I could get benefit from counselling. And I want to give it a try. I heard that the college provides counselling free of charge. That is great. So what am I waiting for? Maybe I consider my problems too small to waste the college's time. Maybe I feel too embarrassed to reveal my garbage. I will wait and see.

This week's class reminded me of some success books. Break the problem into small bits, set specific goals, and start with what you can do so that you get motivated. It is good advice. I know it works. Yet sometimes I just want to abandon myself to the flow of life without setting goals or planning future; just being contended with whatever my destiny has to offer. If death makes everybody equal, why bother? Death is inevitable, isn't it? No matter what you do, at the end of the day, you get nothing. So don’t try so hard. Just wait and die. Reasonable argument? It is, to me. However, there is the excitement of learning. I want to explore, understand and satisfy my curiosity. I feel that it isn't right to live without struggling to discover the meaning of life. Plus I don't know what happens after death. There is some serious promise and threat. Oh, I wouldn't mind an eternal bliss. And who could stand an everlasting torture?

Everybody is prejudiced, proposed Alan. There were some objections. But what is prejudice? Maybe we could have gone through examples. Anyway, I accept I am prejudiced. When I talked about our prejudices, I mentioned my dislike against bully type of people. It could affect my counselling session as a counsellor. I would probably very difficult for me to be a non-judgemental listener before a client who tells me that, for example, he beats his wife and children.

I think there is an ideology in this counselling stuff, which may conflict the counsellor’s own believes. If the counsellor has 'a sort of' faith, as Ann stated, it might not be very difficult to be non-judgemental and to cope with possible conflicts between the counsellor's and the client's belief systems. However, if the counsellor has a very strong faith, and believes that, for instance, what she believes is the law of God, thus is the ultimate truth, she could hardly accept the client as he is. Let's say the client is telling his problem with his live-in girlfriend. The counsellor may say to herself, "Oh, you live in sin, then! You had better forswear and leave her or get married." In such cases it could be so difficult just to help the client make his own decision and keep on living his 'wrong' lifestyle, couldn't it be?

Alan demonstrated the importance of getting factual information beforehand by giving a remarkable example of one of his cases. I am too the first child in the family. I have got two brothers and two sisters. My dad had been closer to me than my mum in my childhood. It wasn't the amount of time we spent together. My mum was a housewife and my dad worked full time. I would see my mum much more, but I used to like my dad more. Maybe absence made the heart grow founder. Maybe my mum took the stress of looking after so many children out on me, which could have kept me emotionally away from my mum. Was she interested in the second child so she didn't give much attention to me? No, I think not. My first sibling was born three years after me. I might have been jealous of him, but actually I think my mum gave me too much attention to mould me according to her standards, as I vaguely seem to remember myself thinking about what my mum would say about how I behaved. I didn't like the way she treated me. Maybe she wasn't really too abusive, but I could say that discipline based on threats and fear was an essential part of her parenting style and child rearing practice.

Apparently, whatever I learnt when I was a child lingers deeply and continue to affect my thoughts, believes, attitudes, behaviours and feelings. I can see that they have largely been moulded by the outside world, consciously or unconsciously. I quite agree with Don Juan Matus who said, "Human beings are perceivers, but the world that they perceive is an illusion: an illusion created by the description that was told to them from the moment they were born." (From Tales of Power by Carlos Castaneda.) And now am I really free to believe in anything I choose to believe?!

I wish to be completely free from the prejudice that I have picked up from my parents, environment, culture etc. OK, I accept that I am looking for something impossible. But at least the answers to some basic philosophical questions could have been given in a different way. Whether I did ask the questions or the answers were actually unsolicited is another story, but if a child asked me, for example, what would happen after death, I would say something like, "Some people believe that... and some others believe that..." I don't remember if I ever received such a flexible answer in my childhood. The implicit or explicit answers to some theoretical questions like the meaning of life, where we came from or why we are here as well as some practical questions like how to live, what to do or what not to do were usually single, definite and unquestionable.

What a sad picture that Alan drew: "When the children leaves, nothing left in common between some partners, though they might still have sex. The odds are they will soon split up." It seems to me that such a situation may be related to how the relationship started in the first place. They might have relied on mainly physical attractiveness, which is I think simply not enough on its own for a satisfactory, permanent, long-term relationship. I have never been married, but it isn't difficult to see that. If I am ever to marry, I should try to visualize the future of that probable relationship and put myself in the place of those kids-gone-nothing-left types of partners.

When kids gone? What do we have children anyway? Alan has asked that question several times throughout the course. What a good question indeed. Many people seem to have taken for granted that they should have children. But why? I think when you come down to it many people have children just out of conformism. I also suspect that, particularly in a western style urban life, some people choose to have children semiconsciously or subconsciously to keep themselves occupied so that they can avoid facing the meaninglessness of their life because it should be too scary.

By the way, having children appears quite unreasonable to me. Why would I have children? Someone who would love & look after me, fill my emotional incompleteness, continue my existence through my genes? No, I don't feel like that. I don't want to make sweeping generalisations, but as far as I can observe, children's attitudes towards others tend to be egocentric and self-oriented. They just want their needs to be met. They just consume (well, at least in the society in which I live). I guess if I had children, they wouldn't be very different from any other children in terms of those typical characteristics. They would take my time, energy and money. They wouldn't have many significant things to share with me. They could hardly empathise or philosophise with me. At the end of the day, what I think is that the cost of having children for me would be much more than its benefits, so I don't want to put such a burden on my back.

A woman went for psychoanalysis for 10 years and spent £30,000 in total. Ann said jokingly, "At the end of the therapy she's even more screwed up!" Yes, seemingly that therapy is really costly. It seems a kind of luxury. I am not a proponent of psychoanalysis, but still if one feels better, why not splash out on such a luxury? What are we supposed to do with money while suffering emotionally? I wouldn't care too much about spending on a therapy if it would be helpful.

If the counselling is going nowhere, the counsellor should finish the counselling process because it is unethical to carry on, Alan argued. I don't agree. I might tell the clients about my impression. Still then, making the final decision is not my business; it is the clients who are supposed to decide whether they should continue or not. If I, as a counsellor, decided to finish counselling thinking that it is going nowhere, wouldn't I assume that I know what is good for the clients better than they do? Maybe they don't want to go to an obvious destination, somewhere specifically planned. Maybe they just want to be listened and understood without getting judged or advised. Who am I to decide if such sort of benefits the clients might be getting are actually good or bad for them?

We are all unique, so we should never assume that just because the experience is similar the feeling should also be the same, Alan suggested. Yes, instead of just assuming, asking the clients seems to be the best or maybe the only way to understand their feelings correctly. Well, I am actually not sure if I could really understand others correctly because we put the meaning we want to convey into the words and the content of the words may differ from individual to individual.

I don't remember whether my mum used to ask me in my childhood what I did at school when I came back home. Nevertheless, I seem to remember I wouldn't tell her much about what happened at school or somewhere else or inside me. I think it is probably because she wouldn't only listen to me; she had some fixed standards in her mind and she would often judge what I tell her. And today, as a grown-up, I still don't share many things with her. She still tends to give much unsolicited advice even though I have explicitly expressed many times that I did not want to receive her advice. She just ignores my expectation and keeps on doing what she thinks best. She tries to interfere with my life without my consent. She supposes she knows better than I do, for example, if I feel cold or my jumper is thick enough to keep me warm. She advices me not to read the books that seem to influence my ideas and keep me away from her conventional values. Actually, I don't find such sort of attitudes of her as annoying as in the past. I seem to have lost much of my oversensitivity, but still I feel uncomfortable when she is around, so I try not to visit her too often and not to speak to her on the phone too long. It seems to me that my current aloof reaction towards my mother stems from the accumulation of years, not only how she recently treats me. Anyway, when all's said and done I feel all right now. I even sometimes feel thankful because my mother's undesirable behaviours apparently prevented me from having a strong attachment and enabled me to develop an emotionally independent personality. Above all, I owe a great deal to the unsatisfactory parts of my past as they have pushed me into a rewarding self-improvement journey.

What a powerful statement Alan made: "Somewhere here there is a crying child. If we could let the pain out, Noah would have to build the ark again. We would cry and cry. There would be the flood." I think it wouldn't be only because of the personal history of each of us as individuals. Maybe it would also be because of the destiny of human race. I feel that people are weak, helpless and forlorn. They are condemned to death. Whatever they could do is futile. And as a member of humanity, I share the same destiny with others. It is sad. It is distressing. It is poignant.

I heard in the class that I should never give counselling to family and friends because I would show them they are responsible for their life. This is not what they want to see. And they may dislike people who make them realize it. Alan expressed that friends are supposed to say, for instance, "Throw him away. Tell him to fuck off. I wouldn't put up with that. You can stay at my house." It looks I, as a counsellor, would need to play different roles with different people. Would it be hypocrite of me? Whatever. Alan's suggestion sounds pretty sensible. Why not?

Yes, I can feel that a part of me wants to be a hero who is capable of solving people's problems for them. However, even if I were able to do that, I accept the principle that if I rescue the clients, I don't really help them. I am supposed to help the clients take care of themselves, not do the job for them. The change has to come from the clients themselves. I believe that each person is a unique individual and everyone should try to find their own way of life.

When we practiced in the class, I didn't like the way my partner listened to me. She didn't seem to take it seriously. She didn't appear to give me her full attention. She often neglected some basic listening techniques. She even looked around several times. Plus she asked me some irrelevant questions. Nevertheless, that she didn't listen to me properly didn't upset me. I didn't take offence. Nor did I get annoyed. I considered it as her problem, not mine. I am glad to experience that.

Have I changed since I started this counselling course? If yes, how have I changed? Well, I think I haven't changed much, really. I was keeping a journal before I started this course. And I still do. The ideas I have met in the course aren't completely new to me. In the name of change, maybe I have experienced some modifications. I could say that in general the ideas that I had already accepted have become a bit stronger. For example, if I had given counselling before I started the course, not giving advice, which is one of the fundamental principles of counselling, would have probably been what I would have tried to follow, with some exceptions. Now if I give counselling or at least practice the listening skills of counselling in daily life, I give extra attention to avoid giving advice. (Though I still don't quite understand why they continue to call it counselling!)