A counselling session – what can I expect?

Visiting a counsellor for mental health issues often causes an individual an amount of anxiety in itself. Whether a person is looking for treatment for depression, anxiety or a relationship problem, counselling can be enormously helpful. To open up and share personal things about yourself can be challenging. Why would a counsellor be able to help rather than a friend? The answer to that is simple. A counsellor is trained specifically in two main areas.

• The first is to become objective, open-minded, non-judgemental and client focused. Training provides the counsellor with specific strategies and techniques to get clients unstuck and encourages them to look at things from all perspectives.
• The second area is to work on themselves, to constantly challenge their blindspots to ensure that they are providing the best facilitation possible to encourage a client to consider their choices and responsibilities from all angles. The counsellor’s job is to help a person identify where they can’t see or deny they have choices where they might exist, to consider the consequences of their actions and to see their part in creating what happens in their life.

All this happens within a confidential and supportive environment which the counsellor seeks to provide, since that is one of the key reasons they do the work they do – a real compassion is getting people to lead better lives. We can be supported by friends, but without training and the professional context, a friend will always be biased and subjective in assisting their friend in making decisions. Also, the person with the problem, feels it is only fair for each person in the friendship to be focused on. Not so in a counselling session – the focus is on the client’s story; rarely will the counsellor share things about their story. This mix allows magical things to happen and clients to gain the courage to change their lives.

How does couples counselling work?