Reflections of Guidance: Navigating the Journey of Self-Discovery

At what point does a counselor serve as a guardian, a gatekeeper, and a guide within certain transition points in life? When the seeker comes, and then the seeker decides to go, it is here that one must ponder the role of guiding them. At what juncture do you attempt to redirect the client back onto themselves, holding a mirror of reflection? This mirror allows them to reevaluate their choices, directions, impulses, wants, preferences, and true will, especially when the individual is reactive to their own knee-jerk reactions.

When one acts not in accordance with the true will, but under the influence of neurotic or neuronic feedback loops, they are trapped in maladaptive cognitive schemas embedded within the false ego and false self-identities. These are the ego’s trappings, the false echoes of self that misguide. The counselor, serving as a sage, a guide, and a bearer of wisdom, stands apart from the reactionary nature of the client’s own knee-jerk reactions to their circumstances.

It is essential for the clinician to remain clear-thinking and rational, as bearers of wisdom in murky times, within the systemic challenges that threaten to contaminate thinking and the value of meaningful moments. The counselor is the bearer who facilitates the teaching principle, the teaching moment, the noetic highlight of each encounter and experience. One must find this for themselves and aid the other in discovering it within the heated moments of passion and impulse.

In doing so, the true will is allowed to reveal itself amidst the quagmire of chaos, hopefully redirecting the client back to a more regulated, centered presence of being.

(c)2024 John Piedrahita