Then and Now

Counselors engage in therapeutic relationships from the location of self. Understanding how a person's decision to become a counselor may be linked to their past helps clarify the intention for choosing the counseling profession and the way that the counselor interacts with clients. People in the helping professions may grapple with how to accept the suffering they witness. Recording personal history is a way to prevent it being lost and can serve as inter-generational family therapy. The book outlines a childhood experience of witnessing violence and is followed by relevant research. This research includes commonly held beliefs about the impact on children who witness violence and the subtle ways an oppressed individual acts to protect and reclaim auto­nomy. Examples of service are discussed and situated within the context of Buddhist loving-kindness practice.This book may be of interest to counselors or counseling students children who have witnessed violence people interested in socially engaged Buddhism and individuals who value autoethnography and the preservation of family history. Women may find this book particularly inspiring.