just enough light

I’m never upset for the reasons I think.

Students who came to the Counseling Center seeking help were asked to fill out a form with some biographical information. This gave the counselor a little background before the student walked in and took a seat in the office. On the form was a space for the student to write a brief description of the reasons they were coming to the Counseling Center. We called this the “presenting concern.” How the student described their situation that prompted their visit gave us a place to start in our first meeting.

What I learned early on in my work was this “presenting concern” was rarely the problem. More often it was the primary symptom that caused them enough discomfort to seek help.

Presenting concerns ran the full range: procrastination, lack of motivation to attend classes, depression or anxiety that was interfering with their life, difficulties at home, relationship problems, feelings suicidal, failing grades, or any number of things.

This was the place to start, because this was the focus of their misery. The presenting problem was rarely where we ended up. The purpose of the counseling was often to peel back layers of the “presenting problem” to identify what was underneath. The problem they came in to talk about was often one of many consequences of avoiding some “legitimate suffering.”

For example, I talked with many students about their tendency to procrastinate. That seems simple enough on the surface, but by the time they got to my office, putting things off had usually escalated to the level of jeopardizing their semester and everything else. In addition, the procrastination was usually a symptom of a deeper fear. It might be a fear of failure, of disappointing themselves and others. For others it was a fear of being successful, because one success would carry the expectation of something greater next time. For others it was expressed as anger, their way of not doing what they were told to do. Such fears, common to many students, if left unattended, had a way of infiltrating every part of the student’s life and paralyzing their efforts. Underlying these fears was almost always a childhood message that both motivated and paralyzed the student.

Our work usually involved not only addressing the basis of the procrastination, but also helping them address the consequences of a semester in jeopardy.

Some version of this happens every day in my life. If I am not taking the time to be still, to pay attention, something legitimate I need to attend to is turning into an emotional malignancy that will require more dramatic attention later.