Counseling can be like being a “gymnastic coach” metaphorically speaking

In counseling, we sometimes explore the emotional literacy around “judgement”, and the function of that. 

Many folks we see may “judge” that judgement is “bad”, but without judgement, it’s harder to take action.  So judgement can be good and bad, based on the quality of that judgement. 

Judgement is our assessment based on our past experiences, or inference/extrapolation from our past experiences. It’s like autotext. It can be very useful, or it can be completely incorrect and misleading. It depends on the quality of that past database, and its relevance to the current context. 

So part of counseling is to help our patients step back, and observe their thoughts, beliefs, values, “filters”, and judgments, more and more over time. It may give them more psychological strength, flexibility, and agility to “shift gears”. 

So counseling (especially ACT based), is more like training people to be a flexible and “strong” gymnast (metaphorically speaking), rather than a “strong” but less flexible weight lifter.