Ensuring that people focus on wellbeing and self-care is part of what keeps counsellor Michelle Amsterdam going as she aims to remain in the psychology field for the rest of her life.
A part-time lecturer of Introduction to Psychology at the University of Guyana, Amsterdam is the owner of the Art of Well-Being Counselling Service where she works with both children and adults. In a recent interview, she said the field chose her instead of the other way around and her specialisation is trauma intervention. This stemmed from the fact that she started out at Blossom Inc, a non-governmental organisation which focuses on child sexual trauma.
According to Amsterdam, she has realised that a lot of people have experienced some form of trauma and as such when she is counselling she utilizes a trauma-informed approach with all her clients.
Born in New Amsterdam, Berbice, her first job was at the National Library where she remained for five years as at that time she felt it was the best job for her since she was introverted.
“The library seemed like the best fit for me since I wouldn’t have had to have much inter-action with people… But then I realised it wasn’t fulfilling. It was monotonous and I felt it was not my purpose,” she shared.
She decided on psychology but that field of study was not yet being offered at the University of Guyana and as such she studied social work at the university’s Tain Campus before moving to Georgetown.
Her first job as a social worker was at Blossom Inc, a position that helped her to grow per-sonally and professionally as she got the opportunity to work with clients in a clinical setting and not just children but their families as well. She honed her skills as she made the best of the opportunity and it was there she fell for counselling.
But even as she grew professionally, Amsterdam said, she found working at the non-governmental organisation very overwhelming and draining emotionally and physically, especially as she worked in the Child Advocacy Centres.
After one year at Blossom Inc she sought to further her studies and was awarded a Chevening Scholarship to pursue a masters degree in Child and Adolescent Psychology at the University of Greenwich. It was a dream come true for her as it afforded her the first trip out of Guyana and she described it as one of the best experiences.
Own practice
Upon completion of her studies she returned to Blossom Inc as programme coordinator and remained there for two years before starting her own practice in 2019 with the encouragement of one of her mentors.
“I was hesitant to do that because I didn’t think that I had the knowledge and the skills but she said that she would mentor me along the way,” she said.
But even before she made it official, someone referred a client to her and she began doing private counselling while still at Blossom Inc.
“I enjoyed it and it made me love counselling even more but I was really stressed because I was working at Blossom which was a kind of stressed, fast-paced environment and then I was counselling on the side and also teaching at UG as well, so it was a lot happening,” she said.
In 2020 she moved completely into private practice and that was when counselling became more personal and real for her.
COVID-19 saw many more people trying to find ways to cope as there was a lot of depression. She shared that she herself had some symptoms of depression initially having resigned from her job and she was also trying to cope.
This made her focus on well-being and what makes people live healthy, happy lives. In her case, it was her faith, friends and fitness and fun and career. She focused on whether people were enhancing their coping skills or just going through the motions and trying as best as they could.
She delved into her private practice and realised that a lot of people do not know how to cope, as while there was a lot of information about mental health, people were not actually putting it into practice and needed motivation and someone to help make mental health real to them.
“I saw myself in my clients but the only thing different is that I think I have better coping skills. So I was helping my clients to cope in a very practical way…,” she said.
Initially, she started virtually as that was the preferred choice of many of her clients and even now that she has a space most of them remain online, but children she prefers to see in person.
She found that a lot of children, because they could not be involved in their normal activities and had to deal with online schooling, were experiencing depression.
“Just the whole idea of not having that normal activity to go out and interact with friends and to be in the classroom. … Some parents were finding it hard to manage their children at home and to find new routines and children getting engaged on social media and screen time use and also some behavioural problems…” were some of the issues she has dealt with involving children.
She has found a lot of communication problems between children and parents. A lot of what they tell her, they are not comfortable with telling their parents and she then has to facilitate a process where they can share with their parents. Internal conflicts in the home also contribute to children’s mental illness and her challenge with this is while the parents are taking the children to therapy, what is also needed is some form of mediation for them to learn to communicate.
Amsterdam said there is a culture in Guyana where people do not talk about their feelings. Children are not taught how to do this and at times they don’t feel safe expressing how they feel in their homes. Often children are just happy to have a safe space to say things they are not comfortable talking about in their homes. But her role is to guide them back to their parents, since they are the ones who have to support them; she tries to bridge the gap and this involves a lot of parenting sessions.
Magnify the issue
Amsterdam believes COVID-19 magnified the issue of mental health, with the drastic deviation from what was normal motivating people to reach out for help when they reached a point where they could no longer deal with it alone. COVID also saw more mental health awareness being done in the media leading people to be more open to seeking support.
A lot of her clients experience depression, anxiety and low self-esteem and have issues with relationships, setting boundaries and “just issues with managing life in general,” she said. There are also clients with trauma from sexual, emotional and psychological abuse.
Amsterdam said she sees a lot of men at present, as she is the contracted therapist for a company which employs a lot of males, along with a few in her private practice.
She has found that men are a lot less complex than women, even though they are more apprehensive to share initially. It takes a lot to get men to open up and break the stigma that as a man you cannot cry or hurt, especially if they have experienced some form of abuse that may have placed them in a vulnerable position, she said. She believes talking to a stranger tends to make it easier for them.
Amsterdam said she often tells her clients that she provides a safe space and they can use it as a starting point to share what makes them feel vulnerable or uncomfortable and it makes it easier to share with persons they trust. A confidential, objective and supportive therapeutic space is important, she noted, as a lot of people don’t have that and going to therapy might be the only time they have space to be open and honest.
Amsterdam said she has never been shocked by anything her clients reveal, “because I expect that most persons probably may have gone through abuse and I expect most things…”
Though she has clients from the LGBTQ community, it is not her area and so at times she refers them to colleagues who are more au fait like Raiza Khan.
Flexibility
Working for herself, Amsterdam said, allows her to manage her own time as opposed to being accountable to someone and being in a rigid system. Having flexibility with her time helps to keep her going.
Being overwhelmed at Blossom Inc, Amsterdam said, had to do with the fact that she could be as effective as she wanted, as for her the system has many flaws.
“I felt as though when you helped one client another client fell into the hole and I couldn’t figure out how to find a successful process… It was draining for me and I felt I was not accomplishing as much as I wanted to accomplish,” she said.
In private practice, along with flexibility with her time Amsterdam said, she finds real purpose in the way she is helping clients and she sees a lot of herself in them, like struggles and challenges to live a healthy lifestyle or starting a healthy routine and then stopping; even coping with daily life issues and managing life stresses. While she sees herself in them she noted that now she has more awareness and experience and knowledge which translate into better coping skills and she is able to use those to her advantage.
“… I find purpose in helping them to reach that place whereby they are comfortable and they are happy and they are healthier and they can maximize their joy,” she said.
When she learns she not only passes it to her client but also incorporates it into her life and while she has not been able to reach every client she is still very passionate about counselling and she is looking to further her studies in counselling.
“I find this is something I am going to do for the rest of my life,” Amsterdam said, adding that while she will advance it will be in the same field.
She may look at training counsellors as she noted some counsellors do not have compassion or empathy when dealing with clients, which for her is needed since in an appropriate professional context there is need to connect with people on a human level. It is important as well for people in this field to be involved in ongoing professional development.
Amsterdam advises that life should be fun and not drudgery even though challenges may come.
