From the Author (an Australian-registered Psychologist with 27+ years' experience):

What an honour it is to be trusted with the stories that people [bring] to [you]. ... [always] treat the trust they give you with honour.

Living in a Willy wagtail world

We live in a Willy wagtail world, where attention jumps from one subject, from one issue to another. ... Our aural world is so filled with such sound chaos, that really listening to another person in an environment where neither of you will be interrupted is a luxury we usually have to pay for.

The weaving of life stories

People move through their lives like weavers, gathering the strands of their past, joining them to the threads and filaments of the present ... to make a tapestry of their story. People first come to counselling because somewhere in their own story they lose their way; they have dropped the threads, lost the pattern ... [they] drop the same threads, weaving the same section over and over until they become enmeshed in the same section of the story.

Understanding depression

Depressed people are stuck in the past and are looping back over a past point in their life''s story, trying to get a handle on it.

Communication and avoidance

[In Communication] If there is one [subject] that either or both [of you] avoid, it will rear its head over and over in one form or another, either as a bone of contention, or as a festering pustule under the skin of the relationship.

Counselling experience

In twenty-seven + years of counselling, all except six [of the many hundreds of suicidal people I have seen], were [either] molested in childhood, or bashed in childhood, and/or raped in their teenage years.

Supervision

[Supervision] keeps you from becoming a drooling mess in the corner... It is not a cost. It is an investment.

Self-care advice

Get your own shit dealt with first before trying to help. As they say on planes in the safety announcement, "Put your own mask on before helping others."