Embodying the Environment ...

My Counselling Room

As a counsellor in private practice I seek to create a warm, safe, inviting environment for my clients.  I think I  manage to achieve this as I receive lots of positive comments from clients about the warmth, safety and comfort they feel when they enter, and sit in my counselling room.

Lake District

I think that our environment can have an impact on how we feel about, and within, ourselves.  As I sit here writing this, I'm aware of various environments scrolling through my mind ... the sea on both hot and cold days, hillsides in Northumberland, the Lake District and southern Italy; places I've visited on holidays and days out.  And as I pause in my memories and reconnect to them, I'm aware of how differently I experiences those places, and more significantly, how I experienced myself within them.

I was thinking about this earlier today, sitting in a room where I provide counselling away from my private practice.  I was very aware of experiencing that environment as very different from my own personal counselling room.  I didn't feel as 'at home' there ... & I know that I'm not, in the literal sense of the phrase ... but I was aware of not feeling as much a part of that room as I do when I'm in my own counselling room.

It's almost like I meld into my own counselling room; the room and myself are part of the same package.  But in this other room, I'm aware of feeling separate, very distinct; a sense of having just put myself in it.  I'm still the same person in each room, using the same skills and parts of me; yet I experience myself very differently.

I feel very much more complete, more relaxed, more completely myself in my room, surrounded by my own things.  And in that place, I feel more able to be more fully me.  I guess my own counselling room is an external extension of my inner self.

I have no external factors to consider in my own room as I do when I'm in other rooms; rooms belonging to other people, to other organisations, with their things in them instead of mine.  And much as those external factors aren't necessarily visibly present in those other rooms, I'm increasingly aware of how omnipresent they actually are for me; constraining, restricting, limiting me, trying to make me fit them & the places & people who they belong to.  They hold me hostage; in stark contrast to the completely relaxed, complete me, I am in my own room, in my own environment.

And I'm sure that this must impact on the therapeutic relationship I'm able to offer clients.

It could be argued that, as it's the relationship which is the most important therapeutic consideration, that environment shouldn't matter.  I remember believing this myself when I first began working in different venues and was able to establish effective therapeutic relationships in each of those.  And to an extent, that is true ...

But ... having not worked in other venues for a short while and only this week going back to them, I'm suddenly aware of just how much the environment I'm in impacts on me and my sense of myself.

As I'm writing, I'm increasingly recognising how the environment I'm in impacts on me.  And I guess that that's because, no matter what environment I'm in, I become a part of.  The environment and myself aren't separate; if I'm in a place, a particular environment, I'm experiencing that environment and I'm also experiencing myself within that environment.

Cullercoats Bay looking towards Tynemouth

I feel most relaxed, most 'at home' in those environments in which I feel most a part of.  Those places in which I'm not constrained by any external influences and can just simply be me ... and for me, that's in my own home, my own counselling room, and being out in nature.

I feel more content, more energetic, more at peace, more motivated, more willing to take good care of myself and nurture myself, etc., ... in short, more me.

Reflecting on this in terms of client work, people often find themselves feeling 'depressed' when they feel stuck or trapped in environments in which they're not happy; not able to be fully themselves.  For example, jobs they don't like, relationships which aren't bringing them happiness, home environments which aren't right, safe or comfortable, etc., etc.

Our environment or situation in which we find ourselves seems to have a huge impact on how we experience ourselves and how we feel about ourselves ...