Love! By Braden Freeman!

Although I am only 28 years old, I have studied psychology and counselling for many years, throughout my twenties. Western counsellors/psychologists are very intellectual, very well trained. This is why, in my opinion, they have lost something of immense value their hearts. Every child is born sensitive and with the capacity to love unconditionally. It is funny that these children, these very young and innocent children, are more capable of love than counsellors, social workers and psychologists. In my essay I will do my best to explain why these people have been forced to bypass their hearts and what I think is their way back to love. !

When children are born they have no knowledge of the world, they are lled with love and trust, but they have no intellect, no mind. Then the parents start training them, which is where many problems arise. The child is taught manners, etiquette, culture, even love. This is funny because love is innate and any love that is taught is not really love. You can see the difference between a toddler and a child who is ve or six. The toddler is still lled with love, he is not so trained. When he hugs you it is so natural, so beautiful, so warm. The older child is more knowledgeable but more robotic. His love is not so tender because he seems more mechanical. He is probably just hugging you because he feels an obligation to do so, not because he feels tremendous love. This trend continues from there and by the time these children are all grown up, they have completely forgotten love, the whole feeling and ecstasy of it. !

Counsellors and psychologists are in even bigger trouble because not only have they been taught love by their parents, they have been taught love by the universitiesthey are professional lovers. Do not misunderstand me, knowledge is useful, and university is useful in many ways. However, in regard to love, university has been very harmful to people. I felt bad for some of my friends because I could tell they were very loving and trusting people before entering university. After they had graduated from university, this was no longer the case. Universities can again nd love, and this love will create a new atmosphere for working. !

Teachers and students should try to work together to nd love. In regard to love there are no experts, because like I said earlier, it is something innate, and age is not necessarily of benet in this area. I am not an expert on love, your teachers are not experts, and your parents are not experts. You can see what I am saying: we need to work together to rediscover love. Love still happens on occasion, it is not completely lost in this world. When love does happen to a teacher or a student, they can share these experiences with each other. They can look at these experiences objectively, subjectively, a total analysis. Teachers can talk to their students about love. Some of the students will be more scholarly and will want to take an academic approach, but others will be more experiential and want to talk about their feelings in this regard. All approaches are good, because intelligent people can look at different angles of a subject. !

It remains to be seen what this type of love can do for the classroom, but we can speculate. My hunch is that if teachers and students are more loving towards each other, the classroom will feel much lighter and free. Work is also not so painful when love is present in the room. I know from my own experience that I work much better when I love the people I am with. When I do not feel the teacher is a loving presence, my work tends to suffer. Likewise I believe teachers will feel more comfortable when the students are loving. I am not against teachers, and in the past I have actually felt bad for teachers. Students can be critical of teachers and overly harsh. Teachers are human beings too and most often they do the best they can. When the students are loving, the teachers will be likely to return the love and teach in a loving manner. Love can be useful for counsellors outside of the classroom as well. !

Counsellors have a tough job and I am sorry if I am being hard on them. Counsellors have to deal with all kinds of mental sickness. Some of their clients are suicidal, others are violent towards others, and some are afraid to open up and talk about their feelings. This is where it will be useful for counsellors to remember that little child within. In such instances where the client is being very resistant, and when all the counselling techniques in the textbooks have failed, it will be helpful for the counsellors to remember their childhood, remember that natural love. A child is the only one who can get through to deeply wounded people. I am not suggesting you bring a child to the session because you do not want to put the child in danger, but I am saying that counsellors need to become children again, however briey.!

In such instances a child will do a much better job than a counsellor because these circumstances require the absence or removal of knowledge. This brings back a memory of mine from elementary school. I was graduating from elementary school and one of the teachers was giving a speech about me. I was not special or anything, every student got one. Anyways, the teacher was in the middle of the speech and she looked over at me. I was a sensitive child and I looked back at her with love, which then led to her breaking out in tears. I did not understand it at the time, because I had not said anything, and certainly no knowledge was being communicated. I now realize that this was a moment of love, and I have a feeling this teacher had not likely had many such moments. She became a child again, it just snuck up on her. Counsellors need to understand this type of love more deeply.!

Being a sensitive person, I have had certain personal problems and have sought the help of many counsellors. And I have to say that my favourite counsellor was likely the least qualied, the least intellectual. I mean, this counsellor was a riot. She must have gone through the proper training but it was not noticeable. She seemed to say whatever popped into her headpersonal anecdotes, curse wordsanything. The funny thing is I benetted more from this counsellor than any of the other intellectual ones. With this counsellor I could really be myself, I felt so free. This type of freedom must have been love. !

I have talked about love a lot. Some of what I have said may make no sense, and some of it will reach certain people. In essence, I just wanted to get the conversation about

love started. There are many intelligent people in the eld of counselling, and I hope they do not completely forget about love.!

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