How does counselling work?
If you haven’t had counselling before, it can be hard to understand what to expect. It can also be hard to understand how change takes place. In some senses, a therapist’s presence is like having an extra brain to help you process what’s happening for you, enabling you to move through it better.
It’s a conversation where you will do most of the talking – about what’s happening for you right now in your life and how it’s affecting you.
I’ll be listening to you, getting to know how your unique brain experiences the world.
The therapist isn’t there to “fix” you. They can’t solve problems for you. They can however, work with you to help you explore the emotional issues and events (including the distant past) affecting your life for yourself, working alongside you to digest and process emotions and events, as well as find new meanings and build helpful new perspectives.
Sometimes a counselling session can feel turbulent and difficult. It might feel like you’ve taken all the toys out the box and everything is a mess. That’s okay. This is often part of the process towards healing. Trust the process. Stay with it.
It’s a place where we build trust so you can feel increasingly safe to talk about things you may never have talked to anyone else about.
It’s a place where you can begin to grow beyond the limitations the past has placed upon you and develop into a healthier relationship with yourself and the world around you.
It’s a conversation where you are able to talk about things you might not be able to talk about in everyday life.
Counsellors don’t offer “advice” or tell you what to do. However, they may share perspectives, thoughts and questions, or information which might help you explore the issues more deeply for yourself, thus enabling you to make your own decisions.
It’s a place where for a short time you can drop the masks and roles expected of you in life and just be 100% you – completely.
Whilst the techniques and ideas a counsellor may share are valuable, the real magic of counselling lies within the quality of the relationship itself. It’s the ability for you to feel you can just be you in the space, unjudged, valued deeply, with the freedom to feel or say whatever you need to say. This is where we meet each other as human beings.
This is by no means everything. I hope however, it gives you some idea of the flavour of a counselling session.