Redefining Facilitation: The True Role of Counselors, Hypnotherapists, and Brain Trainers

As a counselor, I introduce ideas; as a hypnotherapist, I create emotional experiences; and as a brain trainer, I encourage new awareness. In each case, providing service is key.

We misunderstand growth as something that requires a teacher, and healing as something that requires a therapist, but neither is true. Teachers and therapists facilitate, they don’t teach or heal. The person doing the learning learns, and the person in need of healing heals. The same is true of parents: at our best, we make things possible. Our efforts only succeed when we serve another person’s needs.

People who claim they teach or heal are misguided, as only the student or patient accomplish these changes. In your role as a facilitator, it’s only your service that counts, and service is very simple. Service is what you’re asked for.

In situations of greater need, facilitators typically take over and apply more facilitation. Teachers get more focused, therapists get more involved, parents get more controlling, and service goes out the window. Most emergencies arise because of the failure of our involvement. When things are not working, don’t do more of the same.

Personal, relationship, and emotional distress are not calls for intervention. These are rarely emergencies in the “golden hour” sense of trauma care. Too many facilitators see a failure to meet their standard as a situation that requires their intervention. Unrequested intervention is disruptive, especially if it’s done blindly. It is the opposite of service.

Parents, teachers, and therapists are often addicted to their roles. When a crisis develops from a normal situation, those roles are not serving the need at hand. What’s needed in a crisis can only be expressed by the person in need. The facilitator’s vision has failed, and doing more of it is the wrong thing to do.

Emergency responders don’t behave like facilitators, they are more attentive. They recognize that the long-term and the short-term have different priorities.They know that the short-term issue must be dealt with first. In a medical situation, the short-term issue may be damage, violence, and pain. 

Emotional emergencies are similar, but short-term issues are less obvious because they involve interpretation. Emotions are not as obvious as blood on the tracks. A good therapist, teacher, or parent halts the long-term program completely. The long-term program is usually some abstraction in the facilitator’s mind. 

The short-term issue is closer to reality. A competent facilitator realizes emergencies call them back to reality. See emergencies as opportunities to regain authentically shared values. It’s service that you’re there to provide, not parenting, teaching, or therapy. Providing service is your only value.

“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”-- Theodore Roosevelt

Lincoln Stoller, PhD, CHt, CCPCPr

https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com

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