I enrolled in a day’s seminar/study on PTSD today.
It was in Liverpool and most of the group were counsellors, and health care professionals with varying degrees of experience.
For most of the day we were split up into working groups , each with a facilitator.
My group’s facilitator I shall call Josh and he was exhaustingly and successfully gay.
Not only did we find out that he was in a wonderfully supportive relationship with his long term boyfriend, Juan- Luca, Josh also managed to shoehorn personal and self validating facts about the pair of them at every given chance.
I quickly started to hate Josh
I hated his smugness, and his neediness and his showing off about how lovely his two pugs were with their daddies.
I hated his 34 inch waist , and his neatly ironed designer shirt,
I hated just how white his teeth were and how his hair didn’t move an inch as he flounced around.
I hated that he reminded me I was single and sometimes lonely
And I hated the fact that I disagreed with one valid clinical observation he made just because he got on my nerves.
As part of a wind down debrief, we all shared what we were going to do with the rest of the day, and Josh preened that he was going to cook his hubby a delicious steak with asparagus on their new patio barbecue as said hubby opened a chilled bottle of something expensive
When it came around to my debrief , I just about stopped with the comment “ I hope it chokes you both” and smiled a tired smile before sharing a slightly ironic “ I think I will lie down in a darkened room with a cool face flannel over my eyes”
I’m only human, I thought darkly
It might be a professional kindness to provide private feedback to both Josh and the organizers of the workshop. Sounds like his personal over-sharing didn't build rapport as he was perhaps envisioning, but rather distracted from the learning experience for at least one participant. If he takes that operating style into counseling work it will be extremely counter productive.
ReplyDeleteHe'll still be gorgeous however.
Ceci
he sounds tedious
ReplyDeleteI thought facilitators were supposed to facilitate as opposed to letting their own persona dominate.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above commenters! Josh needs to learn that he's a teacher and the class participants are there to improve their caring skills. How childish of him! Bragging belongs elsewhere,, but am not sure just where that "elsewhere" would be!
ReplyDeleteHugs!
My sister in law is like that.😁
ReplyDeleteI agree with the others above -- can you give constructive feedback about his facilitating? Maybe he just needs to be reminded to dial it back a notch or two!
ReplyDeleteAgree with the above, but also, I got the feeling that "the lady doth protest too much". I do wonder who he was trying to convince that everything in his particular garden was lovely, himself or everyone else. Like those influencers, whose lives are just too, too perfect. I bet his pugs leave dog snot on the windows, just like any other dog. And I bet he and his partner end up with food stains down their oh, so pristine shirts! I'll take your darkened room, cold flannel and foot licks over his evening, any day! xx
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of your group silently agreed with you.
ReplyDeleteYour answer shows that you are a well adjusted adult. At times it would be easier to not be an adult, and not to be so well adjusted. Behind the perfect, lurks the real life, maybe trying to hard to be perfect.
ReplyDeleteIn my personal view, Josh was seriously out of line, for crikes sake it was a professional seminar and he acted like a complete dick. Dear John you are worth far more than he as you are a ‘real’ counsellor, truly grounded and we love you for that. Jan in Castle Gresley
ReplyDeleteYou may seriously consider David of Schitt's Creek- comebacks are brilliant , so brilliant the person getting dissed is not even aware at how dissed they have been. I have learned SO MUCH from the wisdom of Schitt's Creek.
ReplyDelete"Ewwww, David"
Ewww, Josh, give me the ICK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Qdq0kx-78
DeleteI like the fact you realised that you argued wrongly with him, shows good self awareness
ReplyDeleteJosh was a narcissist.
ReplyDeleteWhat a shame. A narcissistic counselling facilitator. A study session on PTSD should have nothing to do with me-me-me. A good counsellor should know it’s not about him. I don’t know if I would have had your self-control. It would be nice if you could give anonymous feedback. I’ll just say, Josh sucks.
ReplyDelete