As a counselor I have had the chance to meet and facilitate young girls and women with various issues ranging from exam jitters to emotional and physical abuse. I have always admired their grit and courage to seek help and once the decision is made they bounce back to life with great vigour and determination. I would like to share some significant experiences which I found to be truly inspirational. I am looking that in the progressive steps of CURE.
Cure is a process of learning to exercise new choices. The client who seeks help passes through a series of stages of improvement, distinct in nature although the boundaries might not be sharply recognizable.
From pain to power….
A college girl met me to process her fear and helplessness to come out of a dependency. She was clear that it was not a relationship. Her grades were dropping and she was confused. She processed her feelings and was ready to think and choose options. She became aware of her pattern and the vicious cycle was identified.
She chose to heal herself by intervening the cycle by exercising her choices. She chose to avoid the invitation of the other person. She was experiencing the social control which is the first step of the healing process. She was experiencing pain and difficulty.
During this time she processed her fear and belief about the other gender. She identified that it is a copied behaviour from her parental figure. She felt the relief in her physical body also. When she was turning down the invite she was now feeling the ease in her neck muscles. This is the symptomatic relief which decreased her frequency and intensity of fear.
By this time she is relieved and has created a bond with the therapist whom she started to look as her new parent and secure base. She started depending on the therapist which is again a repetition of her childhood belief.
After follow up sessions and repeated processing she decided to put her own show on the road with new self driving through the progressive path.
I was amazed by her consistent efforts to come out of the pattern. While she meets me now I can see her as a powerful young lady beaming with her victorious smile and of course with her best academic scores back again!
Steps of cure:
Social control – Changed behaviour
Symptomatic relief – Observed in Physical body and feelings
Transference cure – With the person involved and the therapist
Script cure – Rewriting her painful story with a powerful one.
Inside every woman there is a smart, powerful, dynamic, capable, self confident, alert and fabulous super woman. There are times when she stumbles – it may be over a small stone or a rock that could hit her hard. This is the time when her dependency, self doubt, belief system or cultural scripts change their path. She becomes vulnerable and is under the control of the society. This can be reverted. Girls and women brave enough seek help to gain back their stronger selves but a few may founder as well. Once the woman reinvents her strengths she is autonomous.
The world is waiting for such winners!
Ré 