Blog, January 24,
2012
Some Tips and
Advice for Getting the Most from Your Counselling Experience:
Are
you thinking about getting some help for emotional issues you are
experiencing? Have you tried everything
you can think of to solve the issues that you find yourself facing, without any
luck? Are you ready to throw in the towel
and give up, but realize that there are professionals out there that can help
you sort out the issues that have been causing you such stress and sadness?
I
have been a counsellor, in private practice, for the past 20 years. Here are some observations and tools I would
like to give you to help you get the most out of your sessions with a
professional therapist.
1.
Make sure you
have a rapport with your counsellor/psychotherapist/psychologist. Make sure that you feel comfortable, and that
you feel safe and secure, and that your therapist is believable. You need to have absolute confidence in
him/her. No therapist will be upset if
you find that you haven’t or can’t have a rapport with them. They should understand better than anyone else
that everyone can’t be a fit with everyone else. And that fit is what makes a successful
counselling relationship or blows it.
2.
Make a firm
commitment to the process. You will be
investing not only your time, energy, but a good deal of money in this
process. You would be foolish not to
finish what you start. This is not to
say that you can’t take a break if the work becomes overwhelming to you,
however, that decision should be made in conjunction with your therapist. He/she should be aware of the stressors the
counselling is causing you, and you should make sure he/she is aware.
3.
Trust your
therapist like you would trust your lawyer.
Understand that he/she is under the same rules of confidentiality as
your lawyer, with the exceptions which they will make you aware of when you
have your first session. If they don’t,
then you need to question their professional conduct. If you can’t feel this kind of trust, then
you need to question your choice of counsellor.
4.
Now you have a
counsellor/therapist who you trust and feel absolutely comfortable with. Tell
him/her your entire story, don’t hold back.
It is counterproductive to lie to your counsellor/therapist or to hold
back information which could help with your therapy. And you, as a lay person can’t possibly
understand how many bits and pieces of information can affect the ability of
the counsellor to help you, so don’t balk at the therapist/counsellor’s
requests for information, they aren’t being nosy nor are they being voyeurs,
they are simply trying to get all the pieces to the puzzle, in order to be able
to find the clues to be able to help you overcome your issues. Be painfully honest. You will be surprised at how amazing it can
feel to unload and share the bad stuff with just one other person, who will not
judge you or condemn you. It can be a
tremendously freeing process.
5.
Do all the
homework assigned by your therapist. Not
to do so, would be like paying someone to advise you on investments and then
not taking the advice which you have paid for.
It just doesn’t make any sense.
There is a reason for your therapist to assign you the homework, it is
to help move you along in the process and give you the tools you need to help
you work through the issues. And with
good tools in your emotional tool kit, it will make it much easier to deal with
future issues, and help you not to experience the same pit falls again.
Ø
Make a
commitment to attend all of your sessions as agreed. First, your therapist makes his/her living
through these sessions, and you are inconveniencing him/her, but secondly, and
most importantly, you are short changing yourself. Take a good hard look at your reasons for
cancelling your session. What was more
important than your peace of mind? Do
some real self-evaluation. Was it that
you are getting too close to the issues and it’s getting tough and
painful? Share this with your
therapist. She/he is not a mind reader,
even though sometimes it seems so. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you need to
let him/her know that. If you are not
pleased with the direction that the counselling is going. Let him/her know! It is really obvious when you are making
great strides with your therapy; however, it isn’t always quite so obvious when
you are feeling not so great about what is transpiring. You are still the customer, and as always the
customer is right. Speak up, and let
your therapist know what is and isn’t working for you. You will be helping them in your treatment,
and he/she doesn’t want you to feel overwhelmed and if what he/she is doing
isn’t working, then it is her/his responsibility to either change
tactics/direction or refer you on to someone who can.
6. Finally, if you are
done, it is important to do a “closure session” to tie up any loose ends &
to reflect on what has been accomplished and define anything still unresolved.
Your counsellor may or may not agree that it is a therapeutically sound decision
to end the sessions, however, it is ALWAYS up to the client to end, or take a
break from therapy.
In conclusion, I wish you all the best. There are a lot of wonderful counsellors out
there. We all work a slightly differently from one another, but the best
therapists use what works best for their clients. When I started my practice, I was often asked
by pseudo-intellectuals, what was the kind of counselling I practiced, was it
Jungian, Rogerian, Freudian, Adlerian or what?
I would simply answer, “I practice what works”.
