Coaching the Teacher
I tried something in my last fundamentals class that I thought I would share. I have done coached counseling in other classes but have found that the new counselors were so preoccupied with being on the spot that it was hard for them to focus on the process. So, during my most recent class series I spent time over three classes letting the group coach me on counseling each person. Periodically I would stop counseling and ask, "What is the distress?" and "What are possible contradictions to this distress?" Then I tried a variety of ideas, even ones I didn't think would work.
This approach seemed useful in three ways. First, everyone got to know and think about each other in a way that seemed different from what occurred in sessions. Second, they got more concrete practice thinking like a counselor without the pressure of being "on the spot" in front of the class. Third, because I tried lots of suggestions, they were able to see clearly the difference between directions that help and hinder discharge.
Leslie Kausch
Greensboro, North Carolina, USA
(Present Time No. 110, January 1998)