Here at Counselling Connections this week we got to talking in an informal way about the different worlds that we inhabit as we go about our daily business. We had just come back from a walk up the street to call into the bank. We found it very interesting to observe the differing roles of the people we met along the way. We met a woman coming out of an insurance office. She was holding several sheets of paper which we gathered were related to either a car or home insurance transaction. She might have just called in to make a premium payment. Maybe she was filing some paperwork relating to a claim. And we wondered what story might be involved in that. At the bank there were lots of customers waiting either for the cash desks or for customer service. The customers played their roles and got their business taken care of and the bank staff looked professional and dressed appropriately and went about their work with the relaxed formality that their role places on them.

When we got back to the office we spoke about the different roles that people play and how even ordinary day to day business can seem to follow a script with participants like characters acting parts in a play. It struck us how different many of these roles are from the roles which people describe to us in our work. The contrast between the commercial and occupational activity of the main street and the personal dramas of people’s ordinary lives seems stark. People who come to our building set aside some of the formality of their day to day roles. Here we have a space to explore roles that might be regarded as more fundamental. Instead of commercial or other systems people talk about love and life and loss. Among the roles talked about here are those of mother, father, son, daughter, lover or friend. The struggle is to set aside the outer world and get in touch with more personal, internal scripts and to begin to consider rewriting them.

It is hard to tell when we meet someone in their outside role whether they are happy or not. At times someone might not even have a good awareness of whether they really are happy where they are at in life. It may not occur to someone that there is anything that can be done about it. At other times in life we can be quite aware that there are stresses and difficulties which affect us badly and make everyday life a struggle. It is very striking for us when we see someone trying to maintain their public persona while dealing with private pain which is hidden from view.

The task in therapy is to set aside the roles we play in our outside lives and get right down to the basics of what makes us a person. The work requires that we delve into the vulnerability that lies behind the self that we show to the outside world. It is our privilege here in Counselling Connections that we meet people at this level every day. It is by looking at our real self that we get to better understand the influences that make us what we are. It is through this journey that we come to appreciate the ways in which the outer world can weigh on us and cause us to struggle in our day to day life. Therapy can strengthen our ability to respond to the demands of the roles we are placed in by consolidating the inner self that is the bedrock of our public persona.

Counselling Connections, Dundalk.