For Clients
Counselling isn't just for anxiety and depression. It can be used for lots of things, including just feeling as though things are getting on top of you.
It's just as important to "look after" your thoughts and feelings as it is to look after your physical aches and pains. Maybe you've already tried to "go it alone" or "just get over it". Sometimes that works and sometimes, unfortunately, it doesn't.
If something is bothering you enough to be reading this now, you've probably realised that already, though.
Counselling is a "talking" therapy, which means that usually it's a one-to-one meeting between you and your chosen counsellor, and jointly you discuss your issues and look for solutions which will suit you. This might be as well as (or instead of) drug treatments from your GP such as anti-depressants or sleeping tablets.
Each approach to counselling works in a different way and you may be more or less comfortable with a particular one. When you choose a counsellor you need to know how they plan to work with you and decide for yourself whether it sounds ok for you.
My personal approach is very like "physiotherapy for your brain", and it works in much the same way. Something hurts, we examine it, we work out some "exercises" to help with it during the week, we meet up next week and see how it went, adjust as necessary and repeat until you feel ready to continue on your own.
After the initial meeting, which includes an introduction and some admin so that you know how it all works, each session has the same broad agenda:
- How have things been since last week?
- What's gone well?
- Did anything not go so well?
- What shall we work on today?
- Doing the actual work for that session.
- What do you want to achieve by next week?
- How will you do that?
- Review.
By agreeing on something to work on in the week between sessions you keep things moving and your progress will usually be quicker and smoother.
Sometimes, people worry about what will happen in their counselling. You hear things from people, or you see it on TV or in films (almost always highly inaccurate!). Don't worry:
- You are never forced or bullied into doing or saying anything.
- It’s not a confessional - you don’t have to bare your soul.
- There’s never any mumbo-jumbo, and it's all really very straightforward.
- I don’t put words into your mouth.
- I don’t tell you how to run your life.
- I’m not a mind-reader; I only know what you tell me.
But it is about:
- Dealing with what’s going on for you right now.
- Making that process as good a fit for you as possible.
- Not giving you any new problems, by being sensitive to the fact that you still have to live your life day-to-day whilst you’re working through these things.
Within certain legal boundaries, your confidentiality is always protected. I am not bound to report suicidal thoughts or feelings or to speak to your GP or anyone else about you. I will not even acknowledge that you are my client if someone asks.
