What I Love About My Practice
by Blair McLean M.A., RCC
Hi there, I’m Blair McLean, a clinical counsellor of seven years, and I love lots about my practice. Making a mouthful of who I am and what I do: I am a person-centred, present-moment-focused, process-oriented counsellor.
I help my clients repair trauma through inner relationship building, mindful self-compassion and somatic resource gathering. I want to explain this and share why I love it so much.
Approaching Clients in an Authentic and Empathic Way
Dr. Carl Rogers, the founder of a person-centred approach to psychotherapy, believed that to create positive change, clients needed to work with a therapist who was authentic, empathetic, and who treated them with unconditional positive regard. Rogers thought that these were not only necessary but also “sufficient,” which meant that he devoted all his efforts to showing up in an authentic, empathic and unconditional way. I’ve added more ingredients to the way I practice than Rogers, but like him, I love approaching clients from a person-centred place because of all the positive effects. I also love having an excuse to exude a level of kindness that goes above and beyond what most people experience in their daily life.
The Present Moment
So, what’s so important about the present moment, you might ask? Well, as Dr. Janina Fisher, a trauma psychologist, points out, past trauma has a legacy that is alive in the present. This means that I can help clients who come to put down burdens from the past to work with the leftover emotions, sensations, impulses, thoughts and memories in a safe and productive way in the here and now of the session. I think this is so cool, not only because it means that clients don’t need to recount every painful detail of their history, but because it affords them the opportunity to connect with and unburden parts of self, fostering inner relationships in the present moment.
Are Anger, Anxiety, Stuck feelings, Inner Criticism, Indecision, and People-pleasing feelings helping you Survive?
Inner-relationship building involves forming safe, supportive connections with various parts of the self. You may have heard that you have an ‘inner child,’ but did you know that you have other parts too? Often the parts that want to be the most helpful and protective are also the most troublesome. As a result, I end up spending a lot of time with clients’ protective parts, which send them anger, anxiety, stuck feelings, inner criticism, indecision, people-pleasing, and many other symptoms that are intended to help the clients survive. Dr. Richard Swartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems or IFS, contends that there are no bad parts of the self and that they are all trying to help, survive and flourish in their own way.
One of my greatest joys at work is watching my clients change the way they think and feel about the difficult parts of themselves. I see them stop beating themselves up and begin to get curious about how to support their parts and how to bring them together as a family. I love teaching people how to ‘re-parent’ their child parts and provide safe inner leadership.
Helping to Process or Digest Difficult Experiences
When I say I’m a process-oriented counsellor, I mean that I strive to offer my clients a particular experience, whereby they find their own inner process (noun) while at the same time processing (verb) their experiences. I love helping people find their process. For many, it means stepping away from the manager part of the self that brought them to therapy in the first place and wants to ‘do’ things to create change. I help clients step toward a quieter, wiser, observing part of themselves, which can help them be with the parts that are targeted for change, directing curiosity toward those parts of the self to find out what they do, what matters to them and what those parts find stressful. The process often morphs into letting go of the outcome in favour of just getting to know whoever is inside, helping the parts to process or digest difficult experiences.
Mindful Self-Compassion Lends itself to Healing
Mindfulness can be defined as noticing without judging in the present and is best practiced by the wise observer part of the self. One thing you might not know is that the wise observer also has a deep capacity for compassion toward self and others. In fact, I sometimes call it the compassionate observer because this part has no agenda for trying to force other parts of the self to be anything other than what they are. I love helping people use mindful-self compassion because it lends itself so well to healing. When injured parts of the self feel heard, validated and accepted, they begin to relax, inner conflicts begin to abate, and the body can return to a safer, more regulated state.
Somatic Resources
I love helping clients use their inner relationships as resources alongside ‘somatic resources.’ Somatic resources are tools to help the body regulate, such as breathing or gentle hand-rubbing, which help clients achieve a felt sense of safety. I find it so gratifying when my clients’ body states begin to match what they know intellectually — that they are safe, in body as well as in mind.
