Counselling is a process which involves the helping skills of caring, listening and reflecting. It is based on listening to the client and a trusting relationship between the client and counsellor. It is not the same as the advice-giving service of, say, the Citizen's Advice Bureau. A counsellor will be supportive but give no direct advice since the aim of counselling is to help us develop our own insight into our problems. Counselling can help us re-find our own resources within (resources we often forget we've got) and so enable us to approach our lives and problems in a fresh way.
Counselling involves very human skills - like knowing how to ask the right questions and when - and these are highly-developed through training and experience. The counselling relationship is used to explore personal problems, to enable us to make sense of our unhappiness. by getting to know ourselves we can understand our feelings and motives better, and this can reduce anxiety and ease depression in a deep way.
One of the aims of counselling is to guide us from feeling victims of circumstances to feeling we have some control over our lives. So in the course of counselling we can reassess our ‘coping skills’ - how to deal with problems, challenges, relationships, work - and learn ways that are more effective. Counselling also looks at how we communicate with each other, guiding us to be more clear and direct, saying what we mean and asking for what we want, being assertive without being aggressive.
Sessions usually last up to 50 minutes once a week, for a period of weeks or months, depending on the need and how the counsellor works. Setting some sort of goal together with the counsellor (eg. not feeling panicked by the family at the end of, say, six sessions) is often part of counselling.
During the first (and maybe the second) session a contract will be set between us. It is important to discuss issues such as confidentiality, cancellation of appointments and what happens at holiday times, and maybe also access to any notes I may keep.
All of us feel worried or depressed now and again, and most of us have known times when we feel like saying “I can't cope any more” or “I don't know which way to turn”. When we look back on these periods it's easy to see that they're part of life and that it's quite normal to feel this way at some time or other.
But at the time we may feel hurt or frightened and ill-at-ease. It's at difficult, painful times like these, facing personal problems or periods of crisis, that many of us would welcome the chance to talk things over in confidence with an understanding, objective outsider.
Friends of course can be wonderful, but we may feel we don't want to or else can't burden them with our problems, or they may simply not be there when we need them. A counsellor is a person trained to listen actively whilst you talk through your personal problems, to support you through your bad patch and to help you find your own answers to your troubles. They can help you see the overall picture.
Men, women and children of all ages, and from every kind of background, go to counsellors with problems ranging from depression or anxiety to addictions, phobias, stress at work, trouble at home or in a relationship.