Counselling
What is counselling?
The BACP definition of counselling
Counselling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose. It is always at the request of the client as no one can properly be 'sent' for counselling.
By listening attentively and patiently the counsellor can begin to perceive the difficulties from the client's point of view and can help them to see things more clearly, possibly from a different perspective. Counselling is a way of enabling choice or change or of reducing confusion. It does not involve giving advice or directing a client to take a particular course of action. Counsellors do not judge or exploit their clients in any way.
In the counselling sessions the client can explore various aspects of their life and feelings, talking about them freely and openly in a way that is rarely possible with friends or family. Bottled up feelings such as anger, anxiety, grief and embarrassment can become very intense and counselling offers an opportunity to explore them, with the possibility of making them easier to understand. The counsellor will encourage the expression of feelings and as a result of their training will be able to accept and reflect the client's problems without becoming burdened by them.
Acceptance and respect for the client are essentials for a counsellor and, as the relationship develops, so too does trust between the counsellor and client, enabling the client to look at many aspects of their life, their relationships and themselves which they may not have considered or been able to face before. The counsellor may help the client to examine in detail the behaviour or situations which are proving troublesome and to find an area where it would be possible to initiate some change as a start. The counsellor may help the client to look at the options open to them and help them to decide the best for them.
Alison has a Diploma in Counselling and has, in the past, delivered training on the Diploma Course
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
What does CBT involve?
The sessions
You will usually meet with me for between 5 and 20, weekly, or fortnightly, sessions. Each session will last between 30 and 60 minutes.
In the first 2-4 sessions, I will check that you can use this sort of treatment and you will check that you feel comfortable with it.
I will also ask you questions about your past life and background. Although CBT concentrates on the here and now, at times you may need to talk about the past to understand how it is affecting you now.
You decide what you want to deal with in the short, medium and long term.
You and I will usually start by agreeing on what to discuss that day.
The Work
We will break each problem down into its separate parts, as in the example above. To help this process, your therapist may ask you to keep a diary. This will help you to identify your individual patterns of thoughts, emotions, bodily feelings and action
Together we will look at your thoughts, feelings and behaviours to work out:
- if they are unrealistic or unhelpful
- how they affect each other, and you.
I will then help you to work out how to change unhelpful thoughts and behaviours
It's easy to talk about doing something, much harder to actually do it. So, after you have identified what you can change, I will recommend "homework" - you practice these changes in your everyday life. Depending on the situation, you might start to:
Question a self-critical or upsetting thought and replace it with a positive (and more realistic) one that you have developed in CBT
Recognise that you are about to do something that will make you feel worse and, instead, do something more helpful.
At each meeting you discuss how you've got on since the last session. I can help with suggestions if any of the tasks seem too hard or don't seem to be helping.
I will not ask you to do things you don't want to do - you decide the pace of the treatment and what you will and won't try. The strength of CBT is that you can continue to practice and develop your skills even after the sessions have finished. This makes it less likely that your symptoms or problems will return.