The quotation below comes from Collision with the Infinite by Suzanne Segal chapter 6. Although her comments are about therapy they apply equally well to counselling.
"I could never understand why someone would want to pay good money to a person who says little to them, refuses to respond to the simplest of questions, sees in their actions hidden, negative emotions ("the fact that you're two minutes late for therapy means that you're resistant to treatment"), and pathologizes their experience by interpreting everything they do as a sign of some deeper underlying problem. Traditional psychotherapy seems to be based on a primordial fear of mystery, and this fear creates the tendency to reduce, interpret, or pathologize all manifestations of consciousness that do not fit the cultural norm.
Although I am well aware that not all therapists work in this manner, this was the model in which my training took place. It was equally disturbing to hear what analytically orientated psychotherapists said about their patients among themselves. I rarely heard expressions of compassion, sympathy, or even human understanding. Instead each patient had a label according to their diagnosis. "You won't believe what my borderline patient did yesterday." Or, "The obsessive-compulsive I see at 10 o'clock is driving me crazy."
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