Supporting your wellbeing
Taking those first steps
What is Counselling?
Counselling is a talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you and helping you find ways to deal with emotional issues. Sometimes the term "counselling" is used to refer to talking therapies in general, but counselling is also a type of therapy in its own right. It can be beneficial in so many ways: to start with, by having that time, just for you, to talk about and share whatever is troubling you. For some, that in itself is such a relief. For others, it can be about making sense of life when things are feeling off or not right. It can be about making changes, empowerment, positive growth or recovery. Counselling is all about the journey and I recognise it can be hard to make that first step.
Why Speak to a Counsellor?
A counsellor can help you to explore and understand what is causing your difficulty. You can then work together to find some specific solutions that will help you to combat it. Your counsellor is someone you can offload to and be totally honest with. They will not judge you. Hansa says: “The counselling relationship provides a place for you to be accepted, to not be judged and to verbalise what you are feeling and going through. It gives you someone to offload to in a safe environment”. She uses the metaphor of the ‘stress pot’ which can fill up and overflow. “When everything is in the pot, you can’t see what it contains or make sense of it". That ‘pot’ can get emptied out in the therapy room. A counsellor can help you explore it and make sense of it, they can help you find the next step forward.
How can Counselling help you?
Counselling allows a person to talk about their feelings, needs and problems in a safe, structured, confidential setting. The foundation of effective counselling is providing clients with a professional therapeutic relationship based on non-judgmental respect and offering empathic understanding. Counsellors may employ a number of additional ways of working to further support their clients’ healing and development to:
· Make sense of life events, thoughts, feelings and behaviours
· Develop self-awareness and a sense of fulfilment
· Develop self compassion, self- esteem and self confidence
· Explore your sense of purpose and support you through challenging times
· Challenge unhelpful thoughts, patterns of behaviour and anxiety
· Give you a richer understanding of who you are
· Provide clarity and perspective to understand self-defeating behaviours