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

2. 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

3. 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.”

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. 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.

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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?

20. 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