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Wednesday 23 January 2013

Counselling Break?

A colleague suggested to me that I should consider taking a break from counselling to concentrate on my career in research. 
He said, "Just take these two to three years off counselling so that you can focus on your research. You can go back into counselling after that". 
I understand where he is coming from and I know he meant well. I am splitting my energy between my research and my counselling and I would achieve more if I focus on the more important thing for now, namely research. For counselling, there is no promotion opportunities. Whereas, if I focus on research, there are opportunities for promotion and pay rise. 
However, what he did not consider is that I have been counselling for the past 10 years and I feel a passion for what I do. More importantly, I feel for my counsellees. Thus, it is very difficult for me to even consider taking a break from counselling. I will continue to counsel for as long as I can until the school wants to stop my counselling service.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

great to see you are so dedicated. wish i had a counsellor during my school days. *sniffs*

edit. actually i had one. but i did not feel that she was accessible nor comfortable with engaging her help. ohwell.

hweiming said...

Thank you for your kind comment. Sorry that you didnt have a very nice counselling experience. Well, they are some counsellors who would object to my kind of counselling where I preferred to be on equal partnership with my counsellees. I also do share some of my personal experiences with my counsellees, e.g. from the perspectives as a teacher, a parent, a student too, ... :)