The Naked Counsellor

Why naked?

We are all naked under our clothes but most of the time we are not aware of this, and even if we are, we don’t feel as exposed as we would do, if we were really naked.  Often our clothes are designed, not only to keep us warm and unexposed, but also to be the props to support our self-image and the image we wish to project.  However, being without clothes, especially out of doors, gives most people a sense of freedom, of being more at one with nature. It can be a coming into communication with our body, making friends with it, becoming more aware of it and what we are doing to it.

Just as we conceal our bodies, from ourselves as well as others, so we also hide our psychological selves with a collection of identities, roles, attitudes, fears, and prejudices. They serve a similar purpose for our psyche as do our clothes for our body. They hide our psychological nakedness and support the way we present ourselves to the outside world. Ultimately in life, we are alone and naked and whatever thoughts and communications come to us, we have to counsel ourselves. So we are all naked counsellors.

Counselling

Counselling someone largely consists of asking questions and listening to the answers. It is undertaken to allow the person being counselled to unburden  her/himself and to be able to look dispassionately and objectively at the answers she/he is giving and thus gain a better understanding of whatever is involved. 

It is possible to counsel yourself. This is what this book is going to enable you to do. However, it may be that  you will not always ask the right questions and may shy away from the challenging question that you really ought to ask yourself.

For this book to do what it can do – that is, enable you to achieve whatever you reasonably want -  it is essential that you face up to the questions and, more importantly, face up to the answers. Psychological change is generally accompanied by emotion.  No upset and generally this means nothing significant has happened. There has been no sudden insight, no ‘wow’ factor, no ‘Gosh, now I see it’. So, do not be concerned but be pleased if you have feelings or emotions whilst working through the self counselling exercises that are to be found throughout the book.

The Naked Counsellor 

This book is designed to enable you, the reader, to counsel yourself about a number of topics that are fundamental to your success in life. There are a series of  Chapters, each of which deals with a life enhancing topic. At the end of each Chapter there are a series of questions entitled ‘Self Counselling’. You ask yourself the questions and look at the answers.

 If the activity of questioning and looking at the answers is to be effective and successful, you need to try to be psychologically naked – that is, open to whatever comes into your mind and as far as possible unburdened by worries, prejudices and fears and able to step outside the roles you play and identities you assume. It is important that you become more yourself, the real you.

When you divest yourself of your clothes – at night or to shower or bathe – it may be helpful to see this as a series of symbolic acts of getting rid of your psychological clothes.  As you take off each garment, you can imagine freeing yourself from the pressures of the day, the discarding of who you have to be, what you have to do. However, this is not essential. You can get rid of your psychological clothes anywhere and at any time.

More about what the book is about

This divesting of the psychological garments is not as easy to accomplish as taking off our physical clobber. You have probably become entangled with much of it. One purpose of this book is to enable you to engage in a process of untangling, so that you become more of a Naked Counsellor.

It is also designed to help you to improve your ability to do what you want to do, to help you to improve communicating and making friends with yourself and with others. It is about achieving material success but also about creating and exper