Counselling is an extremely effective treatment for all kinds of mental health issues. It allows you to reclaim your power to make more appropriate decisions and gives you perspective and insight into old strategies for living which are not so helpful.
Counselling amongst many other benefits provides you with a space to be listened to and received by someone who is trained to create an environment of trust and safety. Being listened to in a certain way allows you to listen to yourself more effectively. The role of any therapist is to help you develop your own ‘inner therapist’- that kindly, gentle voice we have in our heads that sometimes gets lost in moments of crisis or stress.
Counselling teaches us the gentle art of self acceptance and self empowerment. We begin to learn to respond to life events from a more grounded, mindful place rather than from the automatic, unhelpful fight/flight responses that have become habitual.
Through counselling we learn to relate to our thoughts, feelings and behaviours from a sufficient distance to gain a greater perspective. Feelings are important. They are there for a reason. There is nothing good are bad about them in themselves. It’s what we respond to them that can be self defeating or destructive. ‘The space between the thought [or the feeling] and action is everything’.
Uncomfortable feelings are symptomatic of something in your life that needs addressing. Through counselling we learn to be informed by our feelings rather than be overwhelmed by them. Denial, distortion and suppression of feelings can lead to a ‘stuckness’ which can lead, in turn to further physical, psychological or behavioural issues.
Working collaboratively with someone trained to listen in a certain way and who you can develop a trusting relationship can be transformative and result in lasting and sustained change. Together with your therapist you can explore old patterns of self defeating behaviour and begin to replace them with new, healthier ways of living.
The ultimate goal is to have more realistic expectations of our lives and be able to better manage our relationship with our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours. As a result, we begin to relate more effectively with those around us. It’s rather like learning to treat ourselves as our best friend, which when life challenges us, can be the hardest thing. Put simply, listening to ourselves and our pain with a spirit of compassion is a recipe for healing and sustained mental well-being. The more compassion we bring to ourselves the more capable we are in offering it to others
