Reflective Journal Entries: Weight Control

From Tracy Jones, with thanks

A client came to me for help with weight control. During the meta questioning I felt that there were other issues that needed to be dealt with, though the client seemed reluctant to discuss anything other than the primary reason she had sought help with. She had mentioned her mother a couple of times during the questioning and I had picked up on unconscious body language and facial expressions that she had painful issues surrounding her mum. She later disclosed that her mum had recently died and I felt that she was struggling to come to terms with her mother’s death.

From my learning on the course so far, I realised that, as she wasn’t ready to ‘open up’ about the issue, though there may be ways in which I could help her. From our discussions, I had picked up that she had some spiritual beliefs so I decided that I may use this to an advantage when addressing the issues surrounding her loss.

As the session progressed, I addressed the primary issue she had asked for help with then asked her to speak freely in telling me what she felt she needed at the moment in order to deal with the issues with which she was presenting. She vocalized the word ‘Mum’. Using the information about her spiritual beliefs, I went on to talk about a bright light surrounding her which represents everything she currently needs and wants from her mum, giving some examples of what that could be, based upon the outcome she initially wanted to achieve. I described the light as becoming smaller until she could hold the ball of light in her hands. Then we progressed onto seeing the light as just a speck, almost like a firefly. I helped her to visualise the light moving into her heart. I went on to say that the light, although now only small, is a bit like the sun, in that it has many rays shining from it. This light and it’s rays represent everything that she needs and wants from her mum at the moment and always lives within her, a constant source of resources for her to access when she wants to.

This experience has taught me that although sometimes I may begin a session thinking that I know what the client needs, in this case, a weight control programme, sometimes there are undisclosed or hidden issues which may be connected to the primary issue. For this client it may have been that the weight loss treatment could have failed if the issues surrounding her present grief not been addressed. As the client had not openly admitted that she was struggling to come to terms with the loss of her mother, my advanced learning has given me the knowledge that she may not yet be ready to address this, though there are more covert ways of helping her with this by using techniques by which she isn’t consciously aware of me using.