华尔街中级英语学习教程第6课：工作Act3 (MP3和文本下载)

ROWLAND: Myra - you're a professionally trained marriage counsellor. Could you describe your work?

MYRA: Yes, we deal with any type of relationship issue that comes our way. We used to deal with marriages but 1990s obviously reflect a change in the way behaviours are. And very much now people are cohabiting rather than marrying. And, therefore, open our doors to anybody who is in a relationship where things are difficult. So our work is focussed on either relationship breakdowns or marital breakdown in the hope that we can either help people to reconcile or help them to separate without too much animosity, and with more understanding.

MYRA: The breakdown of marriage in Britain is about 33, 34 per cent. We're higher than any European country. With in fact, that's first marriages, 50 per cent of second marriages breaking down.

ROWLAND: How long have you been doing this sort of work?

MYRA: I've been involved in counselling now for eight years.

ROWLAND: What sort of qualifications do you need to do what you do as a profession?

MYRA: For counselling you don't actually need any formal qualifications but the actual selection procedure is extremely stringent. It's a two year training. And the way we select people, it means most of our counsellors are 99 per cent of the way there. We're then just sort of putting the skills around it. Er, and the training is ongoing. You have to read a lot. You have to attend these courses. There are day courses, seminars, we have training all the time.

ROWLAND: So what are the most important qualities that make a good counsellor?

MYRA: Well, the qualities are, that you're a good listener. That you genuinely care about other people. That you can separate empathy from sympathy. That how you behave fits with what you say. That you have the ability to make people feel that they are important. To be a counsellor of any sort you need to be emotionally quite strong yourself.

ROWLAND: Do you find the work stressful at all? Does it upset you?

MYRA: I would be a liar to say it didn't ever upset me. It's always interesting in what upsets me. Because if it upsets me it means it touches a part of my life in some way. And this is why any good counsellor has counselling available to them.

ROWLAND: If someone in a relationship has got a problem and they come to you for help and guidance that is a very big responsibility. Does that responsibility ever worry you?

MYRA: It used to worry me far more. For any counsellor beginning on the route of counselling it is an awesome responsibility. But what experience has taught me is that people never do what they don't want to do. And what a good counsellor does is hands the responsibility back to the client. So, I see counselling as empowerment for the individual. For them to choose what they want. So they can actually go and live their life in a more positive way. So the responsiblity I try to hand back to the client.

ROWLAND: What do you think are the most important elements of a happy relationship?

MYRA: I know now that the most important element is being able to listen to your partner and actually having time for your partner. It's communication. Communications skills all the time. The most important.

ROWLAND: So what are the commonest problems that people bring to you? Is it an inability to communicate?

MYRA: Yes. It comes in all sorts of guises. It can be sex. Or it can be, his mother's always at our house. Or it can be the children. But the reality of the problem is that they're not able to talk about what the problem is. So the skill is actually, often, not to look at what they're bringing you. But to actually look at the behaviour that's going on and actually get them to start to see what each are doing that blocks the understanding. Because if you have been bought up in a family that doesn't ever talk about things and then you hit a problem that really needs talking about. Your reaction is not to talk about it because that's how you were taught to behave. So, what I'm always trying to do with clients is introduce new behaviours to them in a safe way, in a safe environment that they can experiment with, and hopefully then go out of here and practise on outside.

ROWLAND: You say that clients often turn up with one problem disguising what the real problem is. Do they ever do that on purpose because they find it difficult to talk about the real problem?

MYRA: It's a mixture of both. I mean, they might believe that what they're bringing is the real problem. You know, if they're, if they're saying um, sexually things aren't too good for us. That for them is the real problem. But if you can then get the understanding that if they could talk about what's going on in the bedroom. That perhaps he doesn't bath often enough and therefore she doesn't like to go to bed with somebody's who's a bit smelly and she doesn't like to say it. So, if you can actually get them to communicate then the learning can be how you can improve all aspects of your relationship by being able to talk about it. So, I never minimise what is being brought. What they bring initially is for them, often, the real issue.

ROWLAND: Are then any particular problems that men encounter? I'm wondering whether men are more reticent to talk about their feelings or is this not true?

MYRA: I get an awful lot of men here who tell me they can't talk about their feelings and then I've never met such eloquent people who get in touch with their feelings so quickly, so. They believe they can't talk about their feelings and they're frightened to talk about their feelings. And I think a lot of stuff goes on in men's heads and they often don't or can't connect it with their hearts. And hopefully we can help them connect those two parts of their body.

ROWLAND: So women too have problems that are specific to them that men might find difficult to understand?

MYRA: Yes, that's the good old thing. He doesn't understand me or she doesn't understand me. And I know how they feel.

ROWLAND: Do you normally see couples together or do you prefer to see them on their own?

MYRA: The very big difference in our training to any other type of counselling is we are couple orientated. If you like, I like to think of us as counselling the relationship and not the individual's. Because I've got my problems, you've got yours but mix those together and it has it's own problems. So, it's what's going on between us that is the issue. And the minute you get the two people in the room you've saved like a year's worth of individual counselling because you've that dynamic going on right in front of your very eyes. So I always, always, always try and engage the couple if I possibly can.

ROWLAND: Do you see your job as always trying to keep a marriage together?

MYRA: I don't have my own agenda. So I'm here to enable people to get what they want. Because if I think it's a jolly idea if they stay together. They might not. So what's the point? But, I very much believe the very best place to bring up children is a couple relationship. I think from experience the child benefits the most from seeing the model of the two parent family. But it's often better if a child is bought up by one parent if that parent is dramatically happier.

ROWLAND: So would you ever encourage a couple to separate? If you thought it was best for the couple?

MYRA: Again, what I think of is best really doesn't come into it. But if I feel a woman is in a violent relationship and that's having no benefit to her or the children I would try and present to her a mirror so she can see what she is doing to herself and her family. So I would try to reflect back to her her choices.

ROWLAND: Now of course you're not supposed to take sides either for the man or for the woman in a relationship but do you sometimes find that difficult?

MYRA: Yes. Not often. Um, sometimes it sort of flashes through your head, what the hell is he doing with her or what the hell is she doing with him? And then again I have to look at myself and see what that person is bringing up in me. Why do I feel like that? Because I'm very much in the middle. So if I'm aligning myself to one party I'm not going to be helpful to them solving their problems.

ROWLAND: You must come across some fairly disturbing situations in a relationship. If, for example, you found something going on in a marriage. If a husband was beating his wife. Would you ever consult the police or go to someone else?

MYRA: I would never involve the police or an outside agency without discussing it with my client. I would always try and persuade them to be the one to take that step. And, in fact, that has always been the suitcase. By disclosing to a counsellor they've usually wanted help. And, I have never personally been in the situation where I have had to do something without the permission of my client.

ROWLAND: Finally, we've talked about 34 per cent of first time marriages breaking up, 50 per cent of second marriages breaking up. Are you still hopeful about the state of marriage in Britian, in the future?

MYRA: Well, the other side of that is 66 per cent actually survive. And half of every second marriage will survive. Hope springs eternal. I do believe in a state of relationships. And if we weren't so keen on them we wouldn't keep doing it.