Pioneer's passion for helping others raised the profession's profile
By Theresa Tan
Mr Yeo was the founder of Singapore's first counselling centre and also helped set up suicide prevention agency SOS. He also spent decades training counsellors here and in the region, often for free.
VETERAN counsellor Anthony Yeo was the mouse that grew up to become a lion in his profession, as a relative put it.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
The mouse who became a lion in counselling
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The youngest child in a family of five children was small-sized, which earned him the nickname 'Little Mouse' in the Teochew family.
Mr Yeo, who died on Saturday aged 60, was also an academic lightweight, and he was candid about this.
The man with the trademark goatee once told reporters that he flunked his exams so regularly that he was dropped from three primary schools; he went on to fail his O-levels twice.
But this never mattered, for it was his down-to-earth, giving nature and passion for helping others that powered what he was to do with his life.
His name is synonymous with Singapore's first counselling centre, the non-profit Counselling and Care Centre (CCC). The pioneer of the counselling profession here has often been called Singapore's 'Father of Counselling'.
That he was diagnosed last month with Burkitt's lymphoma, a cancer of a type of white blood cell that fights off infections, came as a shock to those whose lives he had touched.
After all, this was a man who had not taken even a day's medical leave in the last 20 years, said his colleague Tan Boon Huat, CCC's executive director.
Mr Yeo died from complications arising from the disease about a month after the diagnosis, leaving behind his wife, Soo Lan, and two grown-up sons.
Counsellor Benny Bong noted that the man had trained about 1,000 counsellors, and that when he started a training programme in the 80s for them, counselling was still relatively new.
The chief executive of the National Council of Social Service, Ms Ang Bee Lian, added: 'Anthony was the one who made people realise that counselling and social work was a profession and that helping people was an intricate matter for which people needed to be trained.'
He was also behind the set-up of suicide prevention agency, Samaritans of Singapore (SOS). He spent the last few decades training its volunteers for free, among other efforts, said its executive director Christine Wong. 'Anthony always felt that if people had someone who would listen to them without judgment, they will feel better,' she said.
Mr Yeo once said his brush with academic failure and with poverty early in life made him empathise with 'those who struggle with painful experiences'.
His father was an odd-job worker and the Yeos lived in a one-room rental flat.
But money never held him in sway. Even after he made a name for himself, he never left for private practice despite getting offers. In 2006, he told The Straits Times his pay was $6,558 a month and that he hit his pay ceiling years ago.
He said: 'If you are in counselling for quick fixes and rewards, then I say you are in the wrong job. If you are in it for the money, then you can say goodbye.'
Mr Tan said the number of people Mr Yeo counselled was almost double the average counsellor's because he 'just loved to help people'. Helping people included paying his own way and drawing down on his own annual leave to go train counsellors in the region, Mr Tan added.
The counsellor of more than 35 years also left his mark on many students, Madam Peace Wong, 36, among them. The social worker said her mentor drove home to her the importance of listening to her 'inner voice', to respect and to really listen to those she was counselling.
'He was a giant and he will be missed for his wisdom and his work,' she said.
An author of close to 10 books on issues ranging from marital friction to death, Mr Yeo last wrote a column in this newspaper in April about the difficulties Singaporeans have in 'slowing down'.
Referring to the book In Pursuit Of Slowness, he wrote that it encouraged him to make room for non-work activities. 'I learnt I could manage my time, instead of letting it take possession of me. In doing so, I was able to slow down, instead of galloping through life.'
But for him, time was not on his side for a longer amble.
theresat@sph.com.sg
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