Accept - Counsel - Articles about Psychology

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There are several things in a person's life which are more difficult to accept than others and they are all related to the issue of control.

The person feels that he has no control over the situations that surround him. It is worse than when he feels that he was wronged. A person who cannot help things feels helpless and feels that others or other forces are controlling his life, may be desperate and may do terrible things.

That same person can be strong in many other circumstances and could accept many other problems, but when he feels that the problems are beyond his control and there caused from an outside source that he cannot deal with, that is worse. Perhaps even worse is the person who feels wronged but does not realize that this is causing a problem. He has a problem. He's very upset. He's very frustrated, but he does not realize that he has this problem. He directs his anger at what he perceives to be the source of the problem. That source might be somebody local, somebody loved, somebody whom he can point a finger at, anybody but himself. And when he feels that he has to lash out or be angry at somebody, he does not realize that the problem is even closer to himself than he thought. The anger is within himself, but he denies that fact.

Thus, a person who points a finger at somebody else, who is angry very angry at somebody else, who argues about how bad that other person is, the first thing to clarify is whether that other person or force is really the justified target for the person's anger or whether that anger should really be directed elsewhere.

In a great many cases it turns out that the anger is really within the person and if the person's anger can be neutralized, then the supposed or announced target of the anger is really irrelevant or is really not the real cause.

Of course, a person who is angry may cause a circumstance to occur whereby another person will be angry at them and then they can say, "You see! That person is now angry at me. That person has wronged me. That person has hurt me." However, this could very often be that the person who is the target of his anger has been placed in a position whereby he has indeed done something to hurt the person but it was because he was forced to do so or it may be that any action that was done would be perceived to be something which is worthy of anger when it really is not worthy of anger or it may be that the person who is the target of the anger really has done good but it was misunderstood by the aggrieved client. This is why you sometimes hear the client say "What did I do wrong?" The emphasis is on I. The aggrieved person, your client, never realizes that he has caused his own harm to occur.

In other cases the evil or the damage or the hurt really has come from an outside source over which the person has no control and this very often does cause a sad situation indeed. A good way to check this and a way in which there may be a warning sign is when the person points a finger and the person places blame. If the person blames somebody else or something else or some other force, yes, the target of the blame may indeed be justified, but it may also be unjustified and it is worthy of checking and confirming.

A person who begins to act strangely or differently and then starts to place blame should certainly be suspect of a greater crisis.

That person is not going to admit the real source of the problem, within himself and so it is the counselor's job to determine the real cause and this might be a difficult job.

Other indications are that the person seems to be running away from responsibilities, especially those which he was handling properly in the past or if they are hiding you from responsibilities or from people who they were not hiding from in the past.