Counselling the Uncounsellable

When one counsels, one has various strategies. Perhaps one should not say strategies, but orientations towards counselees. Now, sometimes one has a situation -- as I have had -- where the counselee refuses to talk -- yet it is urgent that one does. In such cases, I have sometimes told counselees what they themselves would tell me -- of course, lacking the personal detail that they could fill in. Here, the counsellor needs to know what he or she is doing. If they do, then they have already told the counselee what they would have said -- and the door is open. OBSERVATION: I do not -- as some counsellors do -- press counselees, or reveal all the things I think they told me, between the lines.