About counselling
What is counselling?
Counselling is a talking therapy. There are different kinds of counselling, but most of them involve face to face conversation.
Counselling allows you to talk about what is happening in your life, your thoughts and feelings, in a safe, affirming and confidential setting.
It aims to help you:
- find ways of coping with the problems and challenges of your life
- deal with periods of transition
- live more effectively and enjoyably.
How does counselling work?
Counsellors are trained listeners. Because you can talk to them in confidence, you may find you can speak more freely about personal issues with them than you can with friends or family.
Through listening to you and encouraging you to reflect on what you have said, your counsellor will try to understand your situation and hopefully help you to gain a clearer perspective of it.
Counselling isn't about telling you what to do or giving you ready-made answers to your problems. You know best what is right for you.
Instead, counselling offers you the space and time to work things out for yourself and to come to your own decisions with greater clarity and confidence.
What is counselling like?
Normally you will meet your counsellor face to face, although some counselling can take place in other contexts.
At first, the process of counselling may seem unfamiliar, slightly daunting even. But your counsellor will try hard to establish a relaxed working relationship based on mutual respect.
It is helpful, at the beginning of a course of counselling, to ask yourself what you want out of it, and what problems or aspects of your life you want to address.
In the early stages, there may be a lot more questions than answers. This can be tough, but is perfectly normal. Your counsellor will be there to support you through this.
As your counselling progresses you may notice that your outlook on life changes. The problems you originally identified may now seem less overwhelming.
Often, you discover a new sense of direction or become aware of options that you did not know you had.
This is not to say that counselling can solve all our problems. There are some things in life that we cannot change, and counsellors should be honest about that.
But what it can do is to help us to grow as human beings, to see life differently, and to face up to its realities with renewed courage and hope.