Student Benefits

A Valentine Message for Every Day

By Cassandra Staben Walker
February 2006

"Go love somebody."

That is how one of my professors ends each of his classes. It is also how he ends his sessions with clients. I have always liked it. I leave his class looking forward to going home and seeing my family, rather than being preoccupied with the homework that I have to do once I get home and when my next assignment is due. I always leave his class smiling.

Recently I have used the same words with my own clients. In session we have discussed how "loving somebody" does not require romantic involvement. I used the parting words after a group session that focused on relationships and the development of skills that one can use to take care of oneself in a relationship. I have noticed that many, if not all, of my clients have very conflicted relationships with the people to whom they wish to be the closest. Many of my clients have exceptionally weak support systems.

Much of what my therapy sessions focus on amounts to remedial interpersonal skills. How should we treat people whom we love? How should they treat us? How should we treat ourselves? For the fortunate among us, these things are second nature, but many people were either never taught these skills, or they seem to have lost them along the way.

I have worked with women who have been abused and with children who have been neglected. Typically, these clients have not learned how to value themselves. I believe that before learning how to love another person, a person needs to learn how to love and respect himself or herself. Ideally, each person would learn as a small child that he or she is of value. The lesson would be reinforced each time a trusted adult spent time taking care of and playing with the child.

Each occasion that we sit down with a client, we show we value our client by devoting our full attention to that client. Through the therapeutic relationship we can help clients realize that they are valuable and help them learn how to treat themselves as valuable people. We can model ways in which a healthy relationship between two people can be conducted.

As beginning counselors, we may not always feel that we have a lot to offer a client. But when we are present for them, serving as their ally in their struggles, what we are giving them is indispensable.

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