My (over)sensitivity has potential to be a problem for me in counselling clients. Yesterday I listened to a woman in my class talk about how the death of her dog reawakened her feelings of loss around losing a child a few years before. I wasn't the counsellor in this session, I was the person whose job it is to code the counselling skills and report them to the counsellor afterward. And even in this somewhat removed role, I was awash with emotion. The woman held herself together in a way that told me either she's already been counselled half-to-death about this, or that she has a much tighter reign on her emotions than I ever could have. I was somewhat surprised that she came to class with this issue to talk about today, particularly in light of some of the other non-emotional stuff we've been discussing. (I talked about how hard it is to keep my house clean.) I felt like a bit of a boob getting all teary while she held strong. I wonder how I'm going to manage this career sometimes.


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