Understanding

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will”

- Martin Luther King, JR.

As counselors, we are a guest in people’s worlds. They are not a guest in ours. The greatest counselor of all, never gave a parable about wood working. He gave parables that were common to everyone else’s world.

The first step in counseling is understanding. We gain understanding by asking the person what their point of view is. In listening to a person’s point of view, it is helpful to ask clarifying questions.

Once we feel like we understand, we demonstrate understanding by asking the person if our understanding of their point of view is correct. Most of the time, something about the way we perceive their point of view will be inaccurate. We then need to ask the person to clarify what we perceived inaccurately.

A point of view is not right or wrong. It is simply a point of view. By asking someone their point of view, it does not mean we are agreeing with or condoning the point of view. We are simply trying to understand the person’s view point.

It takes a lot of trust for someone to share their point of view. People are often afraid that they will be ridiculed. The more people trust us, the more open they will be. They are not trusting that we will agree with them. They are trusting that we will not ridicule them.

When a person is explaining their point of view, and we immediately point out flaws in their thinking, we run the risk of them feeling ridiculed or invalidated. Once a person feels invalidated, they will likely stop talking. They may give less elaborate and in-depth answers because they do not feel they can offer you their thoughts, without you criticizing them.

The person may eventually want you to point out flaws that may be occurring, but not until they feel understood. People first want to know that you fully understand their situation. Until you demonstrate an understanding of the difficulty of their situation, they are often not willing to move forward.

Counseling is often about creating a road map to a destination that a person wants to get to. If you do not have a complete understanding about where a person is currently, it will be difficult to know what starting point you are using, when drawing the road map. Discovering the starting point together, helps all the attendees involved decide what type of road needs to be created.

Gloria sat across from her counselor. She was very nervous. She wasn’t really sure what to say or how to say it. All of her thoughts were jumbled up. She had been thinking about her problem all week, but she hadn’t been able to find traction. Instead, she darted back and forth in her mind about how to move forward with her problem.

As she sat across from her counselor, she was uncertain of what he was thinking. She worried that he will not understand where she was coming from. She worried that he would downplay the difficulty of her situation. She worried that he would misjudge her.

The counselor sat across from Gloria. He really wanted to help her. Despite barely knowing her, he cared about her and was concerned about her plight. In his mind, he thought about all the other people that could do better at helping her. He hoped that he would be doing her a service, but he started to feel inadequate.

The counselor took a deep breath and relaxed. At this moment, he was a guest in Gloria’s world. She was in charge of her. He shut off his inner dialogue. He blocked the world out of his mind. He leaned in and focused on what Gloria had to say.

As Gloria talked, his mind naturally did what everyone’s mind does. It drew inferences from his own understanding in an attempt to understand her. He cannot actually understand Gloria’s world through her eyes. He can only understand her world through the lens of his own experiences and belief systems. What he can do, is to be careful to not assume that Gloria needs to understand her world through his point of view. He needs to understand hers.

Gloria felt her emotions start to settle, as she talked and talked. Whenever the counselor paused her to ask a clarifying question, it made her think. Oftentimes, in answering the question, she considered a new viewpoint about a problem that she hadn’t previously. As the counselor asked more clarifying questions, she had to stop and think about her problem in ways she hadn’t before.

Gloria noticed that she had to organize her thoughts, if she was going to explain them. The counselor appeared to be trying to understand her. He did not judge her and it made it easy to keep talking. As he worked to understand her, he appeared to be trying to organize the information she was giving him. As he organized the information, he asked if he was organizing it correctly. These questions helped her create categories for her thoughts. As the categories developed, she began to unravel, for herself, thoughts about her situation.

The counselor was listening intently and tried to understand Gloria’s problem. He attempted to organize the information. He asked questions regarding the context in which the problem occurred. He wanted to know if the problem was context specific. The more he attempted to organize the concepts and constructs given to him, the more he felt like he understood what Gloria was telling him. He frequently paused and asked Gloria if he was understanding the problem correctly. He did so, by explaining his current understanding and asking her to offer corrections, if needed.

By the time Gloria and her counselor had finished understanding the situation, they had worked together as partners in understanding and organizing the thoughts in Gloria’s mind. Gloria had taken the lead in defining the information and the counselor had taken the lead in asking questions about the organization of the information.

At the end of their discussion, it was very clear to Gloria that her counselor understood her. He understood her plight. He understood how difficult her current situation was to her. She felt that he did not belittle or ridicule her. She felt that he knew exactly where she was coming from.

The counselor felt that he had an understanding of how Gloria saw her problem. This offered insight into how her belief system would allow her to move forward. The insight offered understanding into why Gloria felt stuck.