What is counselling?
Counselling is an opportunity to talk about your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, experiences and relationships with a trained professional, who will use active listening to help you process whatever is going on for you. It's a safe, confidential space, where you won’t be judged. Counsellors tend not to offer directive advice, but will generally provide a reflective space, for you to explore at a deeper level than you might by yourself- counsellors will support your processing by asking questions to help expand this process, reflecting and paraphrasing, offering observation, noticing patterns (or inconsistencies), and showing empathy. Counselling can help you to explore and address personal challenges, emotional issues or mental health concerns, it can be a safe space to talk about things you may never have spoken about before - and can also be used to work on your own personal development. Most counsellors work across a range of different issues, but will also typically have specialisms. A counsellor's specialism is usually an area that they've spent lots of time working with and researching - that they have a specific interest in, or enjoyment working with. Some presenting issues (the reasons you come to counselling) might benefit from a tailored approach (a specific way that your counsellor may work). If you're coming to counselling with something you think might require a nuanced approach (for example, a specific mental health issue, or experience), it might be worth looking for a counsellor who considers your presenting issue to be one of their specialist areas, or area of experience - or reaching out, to ask if they have worked with similar issues before.
Do I need counselling? What is counselling for?
There are many different ways you can benefit from counselling - here are a few of the ways counselling might be useful for you:
Periods of stress and emotional struggles
Counselling can provide a safe and supportive environment to process stressful times, including feelings of sadness, low mood, anxiety, uncertainty, or overwhelm - giving you the space to explore and experience these feelings with someone non-judgemental, who will support your experience.
Life Transitions
We all experience times in life when things change - and we find ourselves needing to accept a new reality. This could include the end of a significant relationship or marriage, grief and loss, an unexpected change - such as the loss of a job, or a major life decision, such as career change, moving locations, deciding to get married, starting a family, or finding yourself in a different stage of life - such as having children move out of home, or experiencing the hormonal changes that come with perimenopause. Counselling provides space for you to process and come to terms with these changes, enabling you to settle into your new reality.
Relationship Difficulties
This could include communication issues within a significant relationship, processing and gaining deeper understanding of communication within your workspace or family, navigating family conflicts, talking through parenting difficulties, or processing and gaining insight into your own attachment issues. Some counsellors work with individuals, others will be trained to provide couples counselling, or systemic / or family therapy.
Relationship issues may also include processing your experience of domestic abuse, and how it feels to find yourself in a healthy relationship following an abusive relationship.
Mental health issues
This could include experience of depression, severe anxiety, chronic stress, suicidal thoughts, or mood disorders such as Bipolar Disorder. Counselling can be used as a way to implement coping strategies for experiences such as anxiety or depression, as well as enabling you to explore your experiences in the past and present, so that you can uncover the cause of the anxiety or depression you are experiencing, and find ways to resolve the underlying issues, so that you can experience long-term relief.
Although counselling cannot “cure” mood disorders such as Bipolar Disorder, it can provide a space for you to process your diagnosis, your experience of your diagnosis - and as a way to empower yourself to better understand your unique experience, and to implement coping strategies to help when things feel tough.
Personal Growth
Sometimes it can be helpful to use counselling as a way to get to know yourself better, this could include building self-esteem and confidence, working on boundary setting and people-pleasing behaviours, learning how to manage stress and discovering new coping skills, exploring and overcoming fears and phobias, or goal-setting and personal development.
Exploration of identity
Counselling can be an opportunity to explore your identity, to get to know who you are in relation to yourself and others, and what it feels like to be you in the world we live in. This could include taking a look at - the roles you hold in relation to others and the expectations they have of you, the beliefs you hold about yourself, gender identity, sexuality, cultural background, or being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.
Health Issues
Experiencing chronic health concerns (such as fibromyalgia, endometriosis, chronic fatigue, or PMDD etc), or long-term recovery from an illness or injury can be very stressful - counselling can be a beneficial way to process your experience of health changes, including emotional support for chronic illness, coping with medical diagnosis or treatment, and help with body image issues.
Working on patterns, stuckness and cycle breaking
Experiencing patterns is an inevitable part of being human - when you find yourself thinking “why does this always happen to me?”, you are identifying a pattern! Exploring the patterns of your lived experience in counselling - taking a closer look at the beliefs you hold about yourself, others and the world around you - can help you to find ways to step out of unhealthy dynamics, make different choices, and make long-term improvements to your life.
You may find that you come from a family where generations before you have all experienced similar issues - sometimes this can look like a “cycle” of experiences or behaviours. Exploring these issues in counselling can empower you to “break” these cycles, to make different choices, which may give you the option of a different outcome.
What if I don't know what to talk about?
That's ok! Usually, at the start of your time together, you'll set some goals, or objectives with your counsellor, of what you want to achieve through counselling. This is a way to keep your time together focussed (with the understanding that this focus may develop or change over time). Setting goals for your counselling journey can also be a useful way to identify when you've experienced the change you were looking for, and are ready for an ending. One of the benefits of seeing a counsellor in private practice, is the flexibility you have in terms of session focus - there's no pressure to talk about something related to your goals every week, you can use the processing space as you wish - so if there are other things on your mind, or you've had an experience you need to talk about, you have a safe space with your counsellor to do this.
Sometimes you may find that you turn up to your session knowing exactly what you want to talk about, other times, it might be a bit harder to work out what you want your starting point to be. I'm a believer in ‘trusting the process’ - that regardless of the starting point, you'll usually end up somewhere useful. Sometimes the most valuable and insightful sessions can start with “I don’t really know what to talk about today…”
Choosing a counsellor
Choosing a counsellor can feel like a daunting decision – especially if you are feeling vulnerable at this time. There are a few things to consider when you decide to start therapy - click here for an article I wrote on choosing a counsellor and making the most of therapy.
It’s important to only choose a counsellor who is a member of a professional body (my professional body is the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society, or NCPS). Check that this professional body is regulated by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA). This insures that your counsellor’s training has met recognised standards, and that they adhere to an ethical framework.
I am an accredited professional registrant with NCPS, this means that in addition to having met the standards for registration, I have also demonstrated substantial post-training professional development. You can click here to find my listing on the NCPS accredited register.
Check in with how you’re feeling when you first meet your counsellor – do you feel comfortable talking to them? Remember you have choice in this decision, sometimes it can be helpful to meet a few counsellors before deciding which one is the right fit for you.
