Consultation Glimpses
How does your client know that you’re intelligent, well-read, orderly, sensitive, empathic? –Think about that. When a client comes to an astrologer it is just like you or me going to a doctor or counsellor. We need to be sure of what we’re getting into!
Barking dogs, full ashtrays, overflowing wastebaskets, uneaten food, chewing gum in action, dust, background noise –all dilute authority. So, think about it: what is the impression one gets walking into see you?
Are your books well displayed? Is your desk active but relatively cleared to focus upon the case file in front of you? Do the pictures on your wall show some personal aesthetic or personal involvement with the world? What are the deductions your client will make from all this and how will those deductions prepare the client for the discussion about to transpire between you?
How do you actually begin your consulation? Do you plan to use jargon? What good will it do? If we take the jargon out of the conversation, think of the space and time we have in which to discuss something important! Jargon is nothing but a defense mechanisms for the astrologer and a bore to the client; it is embarrassing mumbo-jumbo.
Think about the beginning of your consultation; what is your frist statement? Why? Where are you going with it? Are you prepared to develop discussion rather than provide a one-sided description, hoping for the best?
An Insight TipWhenver we go onto someone’s else’s turf, so to speak –out for dinner to a friend’s home, for example– we usually take a gift with us or, at least, make sure we say something complimentary about the new surroundings, about our friends. We do that instinctively because WE want to be received well; WE want to be accepted. The behavior says that we are not threatening; we are not to be feared; AND that we want to be accepted and liked.
Over the years, I have found it very telling to have something eminently significant in my office room, something that demands comment from just about anyone under any circumstances. This is a way to soften entry into the office with some small talk; your client will comment favorably on the picture, the furniture, the drmatically lit book shelves, or what have you.
IF the client does NOT say anything about this situation, does NOT observe the comforting behavior, this tips you off to several things: the client is intensely preoccupied (why?); or the client’s self-worth profile (the condition of the significator of the 2nd House) is so threatened that to give a compliment registers as diminishing the self!
This observation helps to determine thelevel of the horoscope: how deep the problems are. The astrologer must be prepared to rescue the “natural” sense of things here, to offer observation of the problem at the right time in discussion and to offer ways to ameliorate the complex, which may have been around a long, long time. –Further reading: Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology –The Professional Manual, pages 729-732.