Flee The Counselors
The tips are subjective opinions that one interlocutor transmits to another with the intention of guiding their behavior in a certain way. The truth is that there are people who without preparation or awareness are pouring advice into the lives of others. In this article we have baptized them as counselors and it is a species that usually has at least one specimen in all families or groups of friends.
Think that giving advice puts us in a position of authority, wisdom and even prestige. On the other hand, we do not usually welcome them with displeasure since receiving them – regardless of how successful they are – is usually a sign that there are people who care about us, instead we do when we suspect that there is a manipulative strategy behind to direct our conduct.
By basing the advice on your own experience, usually the conclusions you share with us are not applicable to our case. Therefore, if you meet a person who intrudes into your life without your asking for their opinion, argues with great confidence without knowing what they are talking about and also imposes their opinions on you, you are in front of a counselor and you better run away from there.
To give good advice, it is advisable in the first place that this advice be sued ; otherwise we run the risk “of getting where they don’t call us”. Second, it is essential that we are experts in the field so that we can give a recommendation based on science or truth. Finally, the only way to give advice correctly is to empathize with the recipient and try to see the problem from their angle and not from our particular position, which is different.
Anatomy of a Counselor
As we have explained, the counselor has a series of characteristics that make it easy for us to recognize him. They are usually people older than us, who because of their age believe they have more experience -when this is not always the case- and they think they are wiser than us.
These are the characteristics that we can find common in this psychological typology:
They usually give typical advice
“Time puts everything in its place” or “believe in yourself and you will achieve it” are the typical advice that we read in teenage magazines and then we pretend to give it to someone else to see if it helps. Obviously, these ready-made suggestions never work as the person you are counseling knows them too. You even apply them, but it is not what you are missing or what you would need at the time.
They have fears that they do not know how to face and they project them into your experience
Counselors are usually people who have unfinished business in their lives, are afraid to face circumstances or have not overcome others efficiently. This makes them give advice to others as a way to repair their own life. No one can help another person if the first person has a mind full of ghosts.
In addition, many times the advice is anxious in nature : “don’t do that”, “it’s dangerous”, “what if it doesn’t work out?”, Instead of motivating, since they themselves tend to let themselves be guided by the fear they indicate.
They practice “yoyoism”
A good counselor always gives advice based on me, me, and then me. Instead of listening to the person in front of them -something that does help a lot- as soon as you finish your sentence, they quickly start one of the following way: “Well, I …”, “It happened to me too and …” All to a greater or lesser extent we have done it sometime and we have observed how others did it.
This makes us feel neither understood nor heard. In the end, we will be the ones who will have to listen to him. Let’s not forget that someone else’s experience has little to do with our own experience, even if they are similar.
They give advice that not even they believe
Most likely, the advice given by a counselor has not been carried out by himself, precisely because he does not believe them. It could also be that they involve a great difficulty: perhaps it is the right thing to do, but not for that moment when there are few forces.
The advice, in any case, must be realistic, progressive and adapted to the person. General advice such as “if you want to quit smoking you should quit overnight and take gum for anxiety” are not only realistic – in this case there are many more techniques that could be used. They can even hurt the person, fill them with pressure or anxiety, and have the opposite effect.
They think that the other is not as capable as they are and that they need them
Counselors are called “life savers ” and think that the rest of us are not as informed as they are and that we are inferior and therefore need them. This attitude is nothing more than a cover that keeps them from taking care of their own affairs, a form of distraction from taking charge of their own life. Nobody really needs our advice, what they need is that we cooperate with them in order to achieve their wishes or objectives, which is not the same.
Before giving advice to someone, who has not asked us for it or about which we have no scientific knowledge, let us always remember the following reflection:
