Self and self-awareness

Abstract

Self-awareness is a vital part of professional interpersonal skills (French, 1983; Johnson, 1986; Kagan, 1985). Our knowledge of’ self’ acts as a guide, in helping us choose our actions, the situations we meet, and the relationships we enter (Snyder, 1987). Our past experiences, current circumstances and future hopes and expectations all contribute to our feelings, attitudes, values and beliefs. These in turn affect what we do, what we notice about and how we interpret other people’s behaviour. As Burnard (1989) says, in the context of counselling relationships, self-awareness allows us to:

• discriminate between our own problems and those of a ‘client’

• draw boundaries between ourselves and ‘clients’

• prevent emotional and physical exhaustion, or burnout;

• bring clarity and precision to the relationship by learning to choose and reflect on our responses;

• develop enhanced sensitivity to the other person’s needs.