“How to shut-up”: An Important Lesson for Counselors

A Lesson in Counseling

It is important to me to educate the world about my experiences in my clinical mental health counseling internship. Why? For several reasons, but firstly, because my internship was a catastrophe. Probably the worst in history; maybe the worst of all time. Behind this it could have been the most productive internship in history.

Beyond my clinical internship where I spent around 30 hours a week in the clinic, I spent about 1 ½ hours per week in internship class with my cohort. I never got along with my internship supervisor, even though I learned from her and I loved and contributed to my cohort as much and as often as I could.

I never really “got along” with my internship supervisor mostly because she often seemed to be more self-involved than interested in contributing to the future of practitioners. I think she caught on that I didn’t think the way that she does. Psychology is hard this way because indeed when facing a power differential, it is expected at times that students abondon their own.

I loved her as a professor, and I respected her, even if she did have a major part in internship failing due to lack of communication.

When I look back, I remember the greatest thing that I ever learned from her, and even if the lesson went unnoticed by many members of my cohort. One lesson that she taught within a 5-minute lecture was that of “how to shut-up.” She taught this lesson, and as providers in all areas of medicine and treatment, we can agree, being quiet is sometimes an essential to active listening skills, and often active listening skills are one basic essential to “good practice.”

Why We Should Shut-up

Silence is stressed in many psychology books, clinical teachings, and clinical counseling books, because it is a tool that we rely on. It is as important as empathy, active listening, and building rapport, and it is tied within all micro-skills in counseling.

Silence has been taught by some to be needed for 8–9 seconds after every dialogue, sentence, or remark spoken by the client. Sometimes this is to let the information digest, and to properly understand and reflect the meaning of the client’s words. Other times, this is a strategy to show empathy and good listening skills. Not interrupting the client is a skill, not an inherent habit and especially when we are working to motivate the client.

Hence, it sometimes is hard for the counselor not to interrupt the client, but it is imperative that the counselor does not interrupt the therapuetic process.

One important thing that I have found about silence is it is a foundation of rapport, and it is required for the client to be and feel heard. Often feeling understood and heard by another human is the purpose of counseling for some clients. Clients sometimes seek counseling and feel better after counseling, because they feel that another human finally has understood them. Perhaps this feeling of betterment is a genuine feeling of wellness and not just a marketing design to sell therapy. People need heard, and if they are not heard, they strive or attempt to be.

My internship professor once emphasized the words for us counselors to understand, “how to shut up.” This is helpful for counselors to be able to narrate to themselves because often counselors are brilliant people with a lot to teach, and often they are quick individuals, cognitively. “Shutting up” is especially important in grief counseling, as with experience in grief counseling, often the client delays speaking their ideas out loud, and perhaps unconsciously assuring that the counseling session is the right time, place, and speed for them to express their deepest thoughts, feelings and emotions.

Deep emotions and feelings rarely come out quickly in counseling, that is one reason it is important for counselors to hold their silence longer than they might like.

The professor gave us some advice of mental narratives to remember throughout counseling. She reminds us that you have to narrate your ideas to yourself when you are the counselor, and sometimes this includes chaining yourself to the idea of “shutting up.”

How We Can Shut Ourselves Up for the Benefit of Others

Some lessons that this professor taught us in the 5-minute lecture have kept with me. Some narratives to remember:

“Do not fill-in the client’s ideas, the client is not a MADLIBS.”

“Do not let yourself overemphasize the client’s dialogue.” Everything the client expresses is what it is and adding to their dialogue or assuming can pain the client.

“Counseling is not an interrogation.”

The professor gave us a list of things to say to the client instead of talking or sharing our ideas:

“Interesting.”

“That is interesting.”

“What do you think about that?”

“Anything else?”

“How was that for you?”

“And you?”

The professor also provides us a few other ideas to chain ourselves to.

“Ask good questions.”

“Use reflections as a probe.”

“Slow down.”

“Pause and wait.”

“Narrate to yourself often, know what you are thinking and doing.”

“Stop yourself before you speak.”

“If it feels good for you it is probably bad for the client.”

While the professor seemed to find some pride in working with my internship site to fail me in my internship, I will never forget the lessons that I have learned from that internship site, and from that professor.

What has been the essence of my hunger in my career is to serve, and if I have to take on another world of internship before I am respected as a provider, I will do so. One thing that I have learned among my latter studies in counseling is that golden lessons are sometimes only taught or learned once.

I believe now that making an effort to quiet myself and be present in the counseling relationship is one of the strong suits that will serve every therapist if they have not sat themselves down before, to harness the importance in learning to quiet the active moment in counseling.

If a therapist doesn’t want to be quiet, they won’t be, but sometimes those golden lessons only pass in front of us for a brief moment.

I find more and more that practice is built on making an exception for success, at the last moment we can forgive ourselves for trying to help, to let the client hear themselves. The moment that people carry indeed holds the therapuetic process alive.