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The use of finger labyrinths also help breakdown the “professional barrier” that we as therapists are taught to put solidly in place (in graduate schools throughout the country),[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and keep sacred. By keeping that barrier in place, clients are kept from feeling on an equal footing with their therapists and therapists therefore can maintain the mental illusion that they don’t have any of the problems their clients are having difficulty with. This separation or hierarchy between client and therapist, in my experience, only serves to put the therapist on a pedestal in the client’s eyes which down the road has great potential for dependence on the therapist, which can lead at best to long-term therapy and at worst to an abuse of power (consciously or unconsciously) on the therapist’s part.
In my practice, I opt to create a healthy footing between myself and my clients by letting my clients know up front that he or she has his or her own strengths and weaknesses and I do as well. I model this when I work with a finger labyrinth right alongside them. In this more equal environment,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the barriers to effective communication tend to break down which leads to mutual trust. It has been my experience that rather than hope that trust builds over time (sometimes months or years) finger labyrinth usage tends to speed up this process significantly as the barrier to trust and effective communication (through establishing this hierarchy) is not raised and fortified in the first place.
I use a finger labyrinth in counseling at the same time as my clients do in order to promote relaxation and the resulting increase in awareness on both our parts. The finger labyrinth helps me be a better listener and helps take a newer client’s attention away from the typical reluctance they have around talking about their issues. Moving a finger through an inlaid wood path (with eyes open or closed) allows both of us to relax and focus. When this happens, clients become much more aware of their own issues and the blind spots that tend to keep troubling patterns locked in both mind and body. As therapists, we in turn become more capable of being “tuned in” intuitively to the client’s process and are therefore able to facilitate change more readily.
With the emergence of managed care insurance guidelines in the counseling field, clients are allotted a certain number of sessions to “get better” (usually somewhere between 8-12) and those counseling sessions are paid for by insurance. If a client needs more than 8-12 sessions, he or she is on their own (once that number of sessions has been used up) to pay for their own therapy or for a therapist to petition the insurance company for more sessions. This, in my opinion, makes the use of finger labyrinths that much more valuable, especially to those counselors who are directly tied to managed care for their financial survival. In my experience, finger labyrinths tend to foster issue resolution in a speedier timeframe in conjunction with conventional talking therapies.
I believe (on a more mysterious level) it is also incredibly important to acknowledge the unseen forces that are present in the therapy room (that assist with the unfolding of issues and the therapeutic process). It is through the use of finger labyrinths that help both client and therapist tune into these forces (via the relaxation the pathways afford) to receive the “aha” answers to problems both are carrying with them into the therapeutic relationship.
The following is an example of using a 2-person, mirror-image, wood finger labyrinth design in therapy. Clara, a very shy, forty year old, woman from Scotland, came to the first session saying in a very meek-soundin
Looking back on over a decade of using labyrinths in counseling, all indications point to the powerful role they can play in facilitating the therapy process.