Aaron Makepeace: Becoming a Deaf Counsellor (BSL)

Counselling, it is said to not be something you learn or a professional mask you wear when needed but is more akin to a way of being: the art of seeing the world from the perspective of another person and truly empathising with them, free of judgement as well as any pre conceived assumptions created from our own life experiences.

Prior to my own mental health crisis during the first lockdown of early 2020, I disregarded counselling in the stereotypical manly manner “Its just talking, what good will that do?” I had asked my local health service for counselling via a service that had counsellors who could sign as that is my language, but was refused at every turn.

My local CCG had contracts with non-deaf providers and refused to fund BSL counselling for me, instead they expected me to have spoken counselling with an interpreter. As a result of this I had given up on seeking counselling all together.

After attempting to take my own life & being assessed by a panel including a County Council approved mental health professional & two psychologists, it was found that my suffering could have been avoided if I was granted access to BSL counselling services.

The panel sent a scathing letter to my local CCG reprimanding their disgraceful handling of my requests, two weeks later I received a referral for 21 sessions of Deaf counselling.

Counselling helped me to regain my sense of self, my esteem and stopped me trying to be someone that I am not in order to please others. It helped me in ways I could not have predicted previously. It is no secret that many counsellors have themselves had a mental health crisis in the past and this often enhances their therapeutic capability with clients.

With my own traumatic experience of accessing counselling and the well documented disparity between our community & the hearing in regards to mental health, I thought I could perhaps make a real difference in this disparity myself. I searched for counselling courses and after sending emails back and forth with course providers asking if they would be accessible to me, I enrolled.

I am currently in the final year of my diploma course and have gained a work placement with a mental health charity, which sounds good – and it is – but I would not be exaggerating in telling you this journey has been, possibly, one of the most soul crushing experiences of my life.

Throughout my life as a Deaf person, I have been faced with Barriers we all so often experience which can dim our concept of an independent life and reinforce a dependency duet with those who “Help us” but attenuate our autonomy.

No barriers for me have diminished my sense of worth or caused me to doubt my own merit as an individual nearly as much as the barriers I have faced on this Diploma course.

In the courses leading up to my current one, the course provider arranged interpreters for me with no issues whatsoever, when I applied for this one I was told that I would have to pay for them myself.

This meant I was expected to pay for two interpreters across at least four hundred hours of studies. I could not even achieve the clarity of mind to work out how mind bogglingly expensive this unique burden would be for me, let alone how I could ever try to pay it.

Why did they fund interpreters for me in all the levels I had achieved so far but decided to refuse to do so now, meaning I had worked so hard, put so much time into pursuing this goal and it all being for nothing?

After countless panicked emails sent back and forth, including from my interpreters who I am eternally grateful for, the curriculum co-ordinator sent me an email saying they had agreed to provide interpreters for my final course.

In the diploma course, qualifying criteria states we need to find thirty hours of personal counselling that matches our own counselling approach to ensure we can manage such things as vicarious trauma, emotional burnout, that we maintain self awareness so as to provide a professional standard to our clients.

As I searched the professional body’s national register for counsellors who use BSL, I was disappointed but far from shocked to find there were only two in my wider county area.

When I started my first session with one counsellor who had BSL listed on her profile, her level of BSL was rather rudimentary, she apologised for “being so rusty” and explained the reason for it being that she worked predominantly with Deaf children & young adults.

I thought this was a sorry excuse as when working with such groups, it is important to have a high level of signing, especially in educational environments such as schools and colleges.

I would have discontinued personal counselling with her after that session as I was rather angry at the excuse she made as well as charging a bit more due to her extra “skills and experience” linked to BSL and the Deaf community, however I was all too aware that there were precious few counsellors who can sign to any level and my qualification depended on me getting counselling, so I reluctantly put up with it. After 6 sessions I could not longer put up with it and put an end to our time together, I was very angry with the situation as a whole. I could not accept that this is what I had to put up with in order to prove my own dedication.

Another criteria diploma students have to achieve is 100 counselling hours with a minimum of 5 clients in an agency placement.

I instantly thought of applying with Deaf4Deaf & SignHealth but the Recent IAPT contract awarded to SignHealth has thrown up a lot of difficulties for me as it is focused on CBT & Personal Wellbeing Practitioner roles, my own counselling approach is no less respected or recognised but is pushed aside by IAPT for a variety of reasons that are highly contested in the counselling profession.

Luckily, I had a positive relationship with a mental health charity as I was involved in setting up a mental health project for the Deaf community with them, so I had no hesitation in asking them for a position.

I was accepted but informed they cannot pay for any interpreters for me, it was all my responsibility. In a panic I had asked everyone, personal friends and Deaf social media groups for advice on my dilemma, unfortunately no one could help. As the placement is a voluntary role, access to work was not applicable.

This was a barrier that in my eyes seemingly reached the inky black ionosphere. Again, my course provider has agreed to fund interpreters for my own needs at my placement after I had told them of these barriers that none of my hearing peers have to even consider, let alone work through.

Coming up against these problems has made me weep alone at night, thinking I have come so very far, only to be faced with a dead end. It has seemed on multiple occasions that I am simply not allowed to participate in the person centred counselling profession, merely because I use BSL.
If I were hearing, I would not be in this repetitive situation.

I am determined to carry on & become qualified as I want to make a difference to Deaf people like me who can benefit from counselling in our own language. When the very serious issue of mental health in the Deaf community and the difficulties we have in accessing services is raised, I now understand the causes more clearly.

There are precious few areas where Deaf people can access the relevant training to become counsellors and in those few areas, the herculean effort required to overcome the barriers included which are unique to us are incredibly daunting. Having Deaf counsellors removes the need for interpreters which services are reluctant to pay for, if they can pay at all, budgets are being squeezed across the country after all.

It is my experience that the counselling regulatory bodies are very much aware of Deaf culture and the distinctions between the disability model and the cultural, more aware than government and many public services. The BACP have been in contact with me about my experience and wish to involve it in the next ethical framework review.

The issue is deaf access to education, training and the continued lack of legal rights for BSL as a language.

If we are able to participate in such training and education as equals, there is no shortage of examples all around us, in the UK and abroad, that really show us, Deaf can do anything!

Aaron says: ‘I am a Deaf trainee counsellor with a keen interest in writing & geopolitics. I am one year married to the light of my life and enjoy traipsing along beaches, visiting historical sites & videography. I hope to publish a novel and an essay collection surrounding Deaf issues in the near future.’