KPC Module One: Unit 2

My yarn finally arrived 🙂 🙂 .

I’ve chosen Drops Baby Alpaca Silk, which is 70% Peruvian baby alpaca and 30% mulberry silk.  I love knitting with alpaca – it’s so soft, doesn’t contain lanolin (which my sensitive skin is grateful for), and has a lovely sheen.  I recently read an interesting article written by another knitter on the sustainability of alpaca, which is another big plus. I forsee more alpaca yarn knitting in my future!

So, onto the course. This week’s unit was about understanding the difference between formal counselling, and using a counselling approach. Formal counselling being an interaction, usually between two people, for the specific purpose of counselling. It usually takes place in a private setting, allowing for confidentiality and creating a safe environment.

By contrast, using a counselling approach is normally more informal and is about using counselling skills appropriately in the context of a supportive relationship. This might be voluntary, take place in a befriending environment, or might be used amongst family and friends.

This course is about developing our counselling skills, and how we use these skills in our everyday interactions. It will involve increasing our understanding of counselling theories, while recognising that people are complicated, and there is no one-size-fits-all.

This week’s section of my project reflects this. This week we put in place the foundations of the course, understanding what it was about, appreciating the differences in approach, and familiarising ourselves with the terminology that will be used. This week’s knitting section involved casting-on (the foundations), understanding the basic structure of the piece, and familarising myself with the stitch-patterns involved.

As a wee bonus, while I was looking at the photograph, I noticed the two distinctive blocks of stitch patterns (just plain and stockingette at this stage) which in turn made me think of the two different styles we looked at this week – formal counselling and using a counselling approach – and that, while they sit alongside one another and are similar in many ways, they are also quite different.