Part 2 – The Beginning of the End

— Stuart Walker, Integrative Therapist, Coach & Author – still a work in progress

Facing the Final Assignment

So, let’s go back in time again – me, sitting at my desk, staring at the final assignment of my Level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling: “Write your rationale.” Basically, explain how you work with clients, what you do, and how you do it. No pressure.

Here’s how I opened it back then:

“It doesn’t feel that long ago that even being in the same room as a client about to share their innermost thoughts with me would have filled me with trepidation, and now I have to demonstrate my understanding of working at relational depth.”

Look at me being all serious! But to be fair, I wasn’t wrong. Four years of training had pushed me hard to sit with myself, face my own patterns, and learn what it actually means to connect with someone when they’re at their most vulnerable.

Ticking the Boxes

Of course, I went straight in with the BACP Ethical Framework, because you had to show you’d read it cover to cover. I dutifully wrote about its three sections: commitments, ethics, and good practice. That was me saying: “Look, I know my stuff; I play by the rules.”

Then came Carl Rogers. Because what self-respecting counselling student doesn’t quote Rogers in their final essay? I wrote:

“Person-centred counselling is one of the humanistic modalities or approaches… given the right conditions, a person can reach their full potential and become their true self, which Rogers termed ‘self-actualisation.’”

Proper textbook stuff. But underneath, I was beginning to put my own stamp on it. I wasn’t just saying “here’s the theory” anymore. I was starting to say: “this is how I actually work.”

Finding Relational Depth

And then came the gold: relational depth. I leaned on Mick Cooper and Dave Mearns – who doesn’t, at a time like this?

“It’s a state of profound contact and engagement between people… an opportunity to explore whatever is experienced as most fundamental to their existence.”

Even typing it out again now, I can feel how important it was. Therapy wasn’t about clever techniques or shiny interventions; it was about those rare, almost magical moments when both counsellor and client are fully present, fully human, and something shifts.

Learning to Stay Open

I also wrote about my own vulnerability, about staying open to clients’ thoughts and feelings while keeping track of my own. Back then, it felt like a tightrope I wasn’t sure I could balance on. These days, it feels less like a tightrope and more like finding a rhythm. Sometimes you wobble, but the connection holds.

Carl Rogers’ six conditions made an appearance (because they always do). I ticked them off one by one: psychological contact, incongruence, congruence, unconditional positive regard, empathic understanding, and the client recognising that empathy. Tick, tick.

And then there was this line:

“I support, I reflect, I paraphrase, I make understanding noises, smile when they do and feel their sameness when they demonstrate something that has left them feeling unsettled.”

It makes me smile now, but I still kind of like it. A bit clunky, maybe, but real. It captured the messiness of being in the room – the small cues, the shared humanity, the feeling that for a moment, you’re both leaning into the same storm together.

Growing a Voice

Towards the end of the rationale, I was writing about presence and self-awareness, about silence being as important as words, about clients knowing themselves best, and my job being to create the conditions where they can figure it out.

And of course, I was second-guessing myself: was I holistic enough? Empathic enough? Self-aware enough?

Looking back now, I can smile at that. Because the truth is, you’re never “finished” with those things. They’re not badges you earn and wear forever; they’re muscles you keep stretching, sometimes painfully.

But hidden in all the academic references and box-ticking was something solid: I was starting to find my voice as a counsellor. I was learning to say:

“This is who I am in the room. This is what I offer.”

That, more than the quotes or the framework summaries, was the real gold.

Recommended Reading

• The Resilient Practitioner – Thomas Skovholt & Michelle Trotter-Mathison
• Presence in Psychotherapy – James Bugental
• Therapist Burnout: A Workbook for Prevention and Renewal – Lisa Dion
• The Choice – Edith Eger