Mentoring Skills (Kennedy & Charles, 2001) Mary Gordon NEPS

Content of presentation What a helper can do Helping through emotional involvement Listening to the learner Listening to the learner by listening to yourself Helping styles

Helpers “help by simply being human with the troubled others, by marshalling their own resources of the spirit and …their common sense …It is also important for helpers to listen to themselves … to sort out their own inner sources of static and interference... Helpers must monitor and identify their own reactions so they will not be hijacked … by them. Helping yourself goes apace with helping others.”

What a helper can do Use your common sense Remain practical Maintain your own identity You are a teacher not a counsellor Stay out of their unconscious Focus on their current life situation Support rather than uncover Do not try to dig beneath the surface Strengthen their best defences Identify and bolster their psychological resources

Some supportive tactics Ventilation – inviting them to tell their story Exploration – encouraging them to describe their problems Clarification – helping them to recognise and acknowledge what they are expressing by catching the feelings beneath what they say Reassurance – endorsing them so they feel they are on the right track Empathy – understanding what they are feeling Practicality – identifying what helps them

Helping through emotional involvement We help by making an emotional connection with them We must touch at some level or we cannot make any difference But we must learn to manage our emotional involvement if we are help the other and not to damage ourselves

The helping relationship To be in a relationship demands that we give up our own thoughts and interests for a while so that we may give our complete attention to the other person But we must also focus on ourselves and what we feel when we are with them Because what occurs between us and them provides us with a code to understanding what is going on

Transference and countertransference Transference refers to the feelings the person seems to have toward their helper. They belong to previous, significant persons in their lives (such as parents) and get transferred to us. They may be either positive or negative in tone. Countertransference refers to the feelings (again, positive or negative) that we have toward those we are assisting, which grow from our own past history and needs

Being aware of our own reactions We need to be able to recognise transference and countertransference to understand our own reactions so we can deal with them to distinguish between our feelings and their feelings We learn to be separate to allow them to be separate from us We believe in ourselves in our ability to be close and helpful without being overwhelmed

3. Listening to the person People generally want to tell you about themselves and what is bothering them will give you hints and correct you but will give up if you won’t or can’t hear them

Forget about problems Focus on the person It is not our job to solve the problem The problem can only be understood in the context of the person anyway The less you feel that it is your responsibility to solve their problem the more freely you can help them to find solutions for themselves

Don’t try to do good Do-gooders are people who act on others in response to their own needs The good can only ever be a by-product of our interest in and understanding of the other person We can never know what is best for another Wanting to do good may be a sign that we should examine our own emotional needs

Don’t try to do well The urge to do well treats the other simply as an opportunity for our own achievement It indicates an excessive focus on our performance rather than on the relationship

4. Listening to the other person by listening to yourself People communicate by how they present themselves, through means other than words We listen for this – realising that how we are feeling is information about how the other is feeling, e.g. They don’t know what to do and we feel uncertain They are worried about something and we feel anxious Listening for the message of the other in our own reactions leads to greater understanding The connection is not something to fear

The problem of emotional involvement is not solved by placing an embargo on our feelings but by becoming more aware of them so that we can better understand what is happening to us – and between us and the other person – during mentoring.

Helping styles The analyser – focuses on the problem not the person The neutraliser – pays no attention to their own emotional reactions The doer – takes centre stage and removes the other’s power

Working for or with others? Working for others Responding to own needs to be worthy or productive Wearing for the helper Less effective for the other person Working with others Focus on sharing rather than performing Decreases pressure on helper and increases sense of confidence and competence

Being human, being imperfect The more we perceive and accept ourselves as imperfect persons the more we can let go of falseness and self-consciousness We can sometimes be very harsh on ourselves out of motives that are a mixture of fearfulness and a need never to be found wanting We are quick to feel guilty and bad about our shortcomings! We need supervision not to punish ourselves for our imperfections but to understand

Questions to ask ourselves Do we want others to like us? Do we judge others? Do we ask too many questions? Do we rush to interpret? Do we like to reassure people? Do we try to be understanding?

Things we need to realise Every therapist, helper and mentor is limited Nobody can succeed all the time If we cannot accept limitations and defeats, we are in the wrong work We need to be helpers to ourselves There will be people we won’t be able to help