What is counselling?
Counselling is the process of talking with a professional therapist about your life and experiences, with the aim of improving how you feel. This may take place as online therapy via video-call (available on Helpspace), face-to-face, or sometimes over the phone.
Often issues in your life can build up until you feel that they become overwhelming or you decide something needs to change, but often it feels difficult to talk to the people in your life about this.
You may feel that they will judge you or that there would be consequences to talking to them about how you feel. You might think that they would be hurt, upset, or angry by what you share with them. Or perhaps you have talked with people in your life or other professionals, and it has not helped.
Therapists take a non-judgmental approach, meaning that they focus on understanding your perception of your life and experiences - this can make it easier to talk about the parts of our life that feel difficult or shameful, as you trust that your counsellor won't judge you for it. This is an important ingredient of successful therapy. It is confidential, which means that you can talk openly to your counsellor knowing that what you say won't be shared with other people.
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Counselling is talking regularly with a counsellor, with whom you develop a trusting professional relationship , about your life. While each session is tailored to you as an individual, the counsellor will be able to help you reflect and understand your experiences through their professional understanding of psychology and human emotions, thoughts and behaviour.
Your counsellor may be specialised in areas of difficulty, for example trauma or relationships, and they will be able to apply this knowledge to your specific circumstance to help you. Counsellors may practice different types of therapy. For example, a CBT therapist (Cognitive Behavioural Therapist) may work somewhat differently to a Person-Centered Therapist, but the overall goal remains the same - to improve your well-being.
Always make sure you are working with a registered and qualified practitioner that has professional indemnity insurance, and is registered with a professional body in the U.K. To find out more about therapist verification, read our dedicated article on the topic.
What can I use counselling for?
There is no right way to do counselling, each person's experience is different.
You can use counselling to address any issue or experience which is causing you an emotional or relational issue in your life. Whether something feels relevant for counselling is your decision.
People sometimes think that they do not feel bad enough to have counselling, but the truth is that people come to counselling for a vast spectrum of reasons. These can range from wishing to focus on their personal development, to feeling something in life has to change, to feeling unable to live any more.
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You might not know what is wrong, you may just feel that something is not right, or you don't feel happy with a certain part or parts of your life. Your counsellor will work with you to uncover the source of that feeling and work to address it.
You may have a clear idea of what is wrong or what is contributing to how you are feeling, but feel unsure how to change this. Your counsellor will work with you to focus on creating meaningful, sustainable change which can continue after you finish counselling.
Some of the common issues which people come to counselling for are; self-esteem, difficulty in relationships (family, friends, romantic, sexual), feeling low or depressed, feeling worried or anxious, self-harm, doubts about whether they wish to live any more, traumatic experiences, addictions, identity, personal-development.
How can counselling help?
How counselling helps will depend in part on the type of counselling you choose. However, most counselling helps in all or some of the following ways:
By having a trusting, confidential environment you can reflect on your experiences in a freer way, with an unbiased companion. Your counsellor may share themes or patterns that they notice in what you talk about, and this may give you different insights from which to view your experiences.
Ultimately this way of talking about your life will help you understand yourself and your experience more fully, which gives you information and awareness when you are making decisions, big and small, in your life going forward.
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As humans, we often repeat patterns or ways of dealing with problems, but by looking at your experiences with your counsellor you can gain the awareness and power to make changes which will break the problematic patterns which maintain how you feel and what happens in your life.
This environment and relationship can also help you to process experiences which are causing you pain. Experiences such as bullying, abuse, trauma, bereavement, among others, are complex and require time and safety to process so that they no longer affect you day to day.
What should I expect from counselling?
You will work regularly with one counsellor with whom you will talk about your life and experiences.
Whether you opt for online therapy or face-to-face counselling your first appointment will be about getting to know your counsellor and your counsellor understanding what brought you to counselling. They may ask you specific questions about your life and experiences to help them understand what you wish to work on.
You can ask questions about how they work and what to expect when having sessions with them. In this session you will also discuss any practical parts of having counselling with them. After your first session you can decide whether you feel having counselling with them is a good fit for you.
If you decide to have regular counselling, you and your therapist together will decide how regularly you would have appointments. On Helpspace most counsellors offer weekly appointments, but depending on your needs and circumstances you may wish to have fortnightly or monthly appointments. You will decide with your therapist when your appointments take place.
This will then be a regular time when you can focus on what you feel needs attention in your life.
You may wish to have just a few sessions, you may agree a specific amount of sessions to work to, or you may agree to work long term. This can ylso depend on the approach: A CBT therapist or solution-focussed counsellor may favour a shorter timeframe, though this varies widely depending on the issues the client is facing. Your therapist will check in with you on a regular basis to check if you want to continue or if you would like to agree on ending the sessions.
For further reading on a diverse range of topics relating to therapy and personal development, check out the Helpspace blog.