JAFARECThe other day was the “Domestic Violence and Moral Harassment Hotline” telephone counselor training. The turnout was slow, but after an hour or so, we had the usual crowd of about eight people.
Almost all of the participants in the training were survivors of abuse. Some were perpetrators and some were victims. They had recovered to some extent from my counseling and group workshop, and wanted to improve their communication skills further, or wanted to eventually be involved in supporting the victims and the perpetrators through telephone counseling… All of them had such a positive attitude.
The content of the training was on the theme of psychology of clients and support. My main message was not only to listen to the client’s narrative, but to provide the necessary advice in an appropriate manner, while avoiding getting involved in the situation, and to change the meaning of past events through continuous dialogue. In narrative therapy, this is called “rewriting the life story.” However, in a phone consultation, there is not much need to go that far in the dialogue…
After such a chat, we had three role plays…all of which were very meaningful.
Originally posted on April 26, 2021
English text translated with DeepL (Japanese to English) and checked by Mina.
