Mel Murphy

What I like most is providing support to people who just really need it, who just don’t know where to turn or who to talk to about this. And they’re just looking for guidance and making sure they’re not going to do the wrong thing. And they just don’t know what steps are they supposed to take. So, helping them come up with a plan that suits their particular needs, that’s going to suit them and that’s going to suit “future them”, right? Not just now, but in the future as well. So, I just love to see the client’s look of relief at the end of each session. They go off eager to do a couple of bits of work, you know. I don’t give them too much because those usually overwhelm. And then we progress through. And to see that progress happening as well. Because I do have people come for one session, but really, I want people to come for a few sessions to work through the whole process. You can’t get everything solved in one session. It’s usually just an introduction to what’s possible, you know.
In terms of what I don’t like is obviously when there is no solution and one of the parties is upset because the other one still wants to progress. So that’s always very hard to be there for the other person and to say, OK, what’s the good that we can find in this, right? Maybe your life will be happier later as well and looking at that. And also, when I can’t help. So, situations where, let’s say people have left a domestic abuse situation or coercive control, but even though the marriage is over, the person is continuing to hassle them. Parental alienation is the hardest, when a parent alienates the children from the other one by saying all kinds of bad things about the other parent, sometimes lies, and preventing the parent from having access to their own kids. And that, I’d have to say, is the most horrible thing to have to deal with.