What is Counselling? In Simple Words

To compliment my latest YouTube video with the same title (Link to video), I will be briefly outlining what Counselling is, how the different approaches to Counselling affect your experience and how to find the best Therapist for you.

Counselling, in short, is a space to talk to a trained professional about any issues that you might be facing. Counselling is all about what matters to you — there’s nothing too big or small to bring, and nothing you can’t use the space to talk through.

Different Approaches to Counselling

There are many different approaches to counselling and this will change your experience of counselling dramatically.

On one side of the scale, you have something like CBT, which is directive. The Therapist will very much be in control of the sessions and will set you tasks and homework.

On the other side of the scale, there are approaches like Person-centred, which is non-directive and you are in control of the sessions. With a person-centred counsellor, you decide what to talk about, what to use the sessions for and what direction to go in. It is a space with much more freedom and autonomy.

There are also many different approaches in between these two, and even combinations of different approaches used together (a.k.a. Integrative).

Hopefully, you can see by this, that the approach that the Counsellor uses will greatly impact your experience and the success of the Therapy.

As well as there being many different approaches to counselling, every counsellor is different too. It is important that a counsellor is genuine and personal, not a professional who is a blank slate. For this reason, the personality of your counsellor and how you feel with them is of great importance. The counselling relationship is continually shown to be the most important factor in the success of therapy.

It is important to find a counsellor that you feel comfortable with, that you trust and you feel is offering a good service to you. Trust your judgment on this one – just because the counsellor is a trained professional does not mean that you have to feel okay about how they work.

Take some time to make the most of free initial sessions with counsellors, shop around and find the right one for you.

You should be able to find websites and information on each counsellor you are considering seeing. There should be plenty of information about each individual counsellor, how they work and who they are. There will also be plenty of opportunities to ask any questions you have during your initial contact with the therapist or during your sessions (they should meet these questions with patience, clarity and warmth).

What to expect from your first session and the contract

If you do decide to book an initial session with a counsellor, this will usually start with getting settled in, outlining the contract, asking you about your expectations and hopes, as well as any previous experience you might have had of being in counselling.

These things are used to both help the counsellor understand why you are there and if they are a good fit for you, but it is also an opportunity for you to be able to ask any questions and share anything that you feel is relevant.

The contract is a professional requirement of all counsellors and outlines things like confidentiality, safeguarding, cost, GDPR, cancellations, out of session contact etc.

This can be quite overwhelming to take in at first. Ideally the counsellor will send you the contract ahead of time, so you have time to read through and see if there is anything that doesn’t make sense or you want to ask questions about in your first session.

Once this is understood and agreed (take as long as you need on this and ask as much as you want), you begin the counselling process. This will probably be the Therapist getting to know a bit more about you, both as part of the counselling process, but also, to see if you are a good fit for working with each other.

The first few sessions can sometimes feel like you are saying a lot and sharing lots of information. This can be natural and is to be expected when you are trying to capture a lifetime of experience and why you are there in less than an hour (or few hours)!

Equally, you might feel quite uncomfortable and not be sure what to say. The counsellor should help you with this and work with you to see what the best approach is and how to help you get what you need from counselling.

After this, you should have a fairly good idea if this is the right counsellor for you. It might not feel completely comfortable as a start, but it is a way to test the waters and see how you are left feeling afterwards (or even days afterwards). Then you are usually in a good position to decide if you want to try another session with them, and continue the work, or try another counsellor if something didn’t feel quite right.

In summary…

I hope this brief article and the video below will answer any questions you have about what counselling is, as well as what to expect in your work and how to find the right therapist for you. If there are any questions you still have, then please get in touch or leave a comment on the YouTube video and I will answer them for you.

I have also provided some links below the video to help you find a Therapist and also some further information.