It's just a dyad

“When I start working with real clients…”

“It’s different when you’re dealing with real issues.”

“Placement is different because it’s real.”

These are comments that present frequently in counselling training. And, if I’m honest, every time I hear them, something in me objects.

Why?

Because I have watched the same students sit opposite one another in dyads and triads and talk about very real things. Grief. Relationships. Shame. Family. Fear. Identity. Anger. Overwhelm. Sometimes there have been tears while they have spoken about these things.

I’ve also heard students share that they have never said what they are sharing out loud before. I have watched somebody take a risk in saying something and the other person realise, in real time, that the response they offer matters.

I have watched students get it wrong. I have watched the impact of being deeply heard and understood. And I have watched them discover what it feels like when they aren't.

So what, exactly, wasn't real?

Role play or real play?

If I give you a piece of paper saying …

You are 42. Your name is Jane. Your relationship has recently ended and you are struggling to cope.

…and you pretend to be Jane while another student practises counselling you, we have created a simulation.

That’s role play. And there can be a place for that in training. It can be of enormous value to learning.

But when you sit opposite another human being who brings something that actually belongs to them, that’s real play.

They may choose carefully what they bring. They may protect parts of themselves. They may consciously decide, I'm not taking that into a training dyad.

Good. That's agency. Knowing what you are and aren't willing to bring into a learning space is part of looking after yourself within it.

The fact that an encounter has boundaries doesn't make it unreal. In placement, clients make decisions about what they are prepared to bring into counselling too.

So, what’s the difference that we’re trying to name when we say, “It’s not real, though, is it?”

Perhaps we've got the distinction wrong.

In spite of what I’ve said above, there is an important difference between counselling a peer in training and counselling a client on placement.

But perhaps the question isn’t “What is real?”

The person is real. The story is real. The feelings are real. The relationship developing between the students is real.

And the moment when you desperately want to ask a question, rescue them, reassure them, change the subject or make their pain go away?

That's real too.

What’s different is that, in placement, the person sitting opposite you hasn’t spent the morning learning the same counselling theory as you and isn't going to give you feedback afterwards about whether your reflection landed.

In short, they haven’t come to help you learn to be a counsellor.

They have come for them – not you.

That changes things quite a lot.

There is a different contract. There are different expectations. There is a different power dynamic. Professional accountability changes.

Language matters

If those feelings are real, and that vulnerability is real, and your response has a real impact on another person, then surely some ethical responsibility exists there too.

If the client on placement is the real client, what is the person sitting opposite you in your dyad?

If the work on placement is the real work, what is happening when your peer trusts you with something painful?

Shorthandedly calling placement clients “real clients” sounds harmless. Usually, we know what somebody means.

But language carries assumptions.

It implies that the work before placement isn’t real. That it is, somehow, pretend.

I know that's not what is meant. But imagine being the peer who has just shared something painful, only to hear the work described later as not quite real.

Perhaps learning to recognise the reality of that encounter is part of the training.

An alternative: translate the context, not the encounter

Placement represents an important transition in counsellor development. But it isn’t a transition from pretend counselling to real counselling.

A more helpful distinction is peer practice and client practice.

It is the context that changes, not the reality of the encounter.

So let’s retire: “When I start seeing real clients…” and replace it with: “When I start seeing clients on placement…”

Let’s talk about peer practice and client work.

Because our effect on another person doesn’t suddenly become relevant on the day placement begins.

A dyad is a learning context. It isn't an unreal relationship.