Sitting in a quiet, tension-filled room with two people questioning their relationship might sound daunting, but for Gordie MacDonald it is where he thrives.
As a former nurse and volunteer relationship counsellor, Gordie has spent a lot of his life listening to people – something which he, and probably his wife Laura, are very grateful for.
“The advantage you get from this is the amount that a counsellor learns from listening to other people,” he added.
“I go home and I ask my wife do I do this? It makes you aware of how you react in a relationship as well.”
‘There’s a big need that has to be filled’
As a young lad, Gordie MacDonald said there was no way he would have considered counselling, or being a nurse for that matter.
Leaving for the Merchant Navy at 15 years old, getting married to his first wife at 18 and getting a 10-pound Pom passage to Australia for a couple of years, Gordie became a bit of a Jack of all trades.
At 25, when a friend suggested trying out nursing, he originally dismissed it.
However, after fewer jobs were popping up, Gordie applied to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness and over the years worked his way up to become a nursing manager.
When looking at community nursing, the dad-of-two heard a talk from the charity Relate and decided to sign up to volunteer with Counselling Highland – known as Marriage Counselling Highland at the time.
However, once qualified as a counsellor, he decided to continue volunteering rather than taking on paid clients.
He added: “I felt quite guilty to get paid for counselling… because once you find out people’s needs, it’s okay for people who can maybe afford to have counselling all the time, but then there’s a large part of the population who cannot afford to pay for counselling.
“We get so many people in the community now who… don’t get all the support they require. They don’t have the resources to do it. So this is another reason I think it’s important that a lot of voluntary work is done
“I think what counselling does, in my opinion, is it gives the client time.
“I felt well, that’s a big need that has to be filled, so I continued for the next 31 years.”
Advice and retirement
After offering a few hours each week to couples seeking help for more than 30 years, Gordie is retiring from volunteering with Counselling Highland.
When asked what one of his biggest pieces of advice would be, the 78-year-old said to be wary of online connections affecting relationships and if possible, consider counselling before issues reach a crisis point.
He said his job as a counsellor was never to try to keep people together but to help where possible.
A few of the more common issues Gordie would witness in relationships included concerns such as communication breakdowns, lack of intimacy, shift work, financial crisis or childhood trauma.
None of this sounds very easy, but helping in these situations has been his passion for more than three decades and is something that has given Gordie a lot of pleasure over the years, and he hopes his story might encourage others to do the same.
To find out more about Counselling Highland, visit the website.
Conversation