Counselling offers you the space to see your situation from different perspectives. Often we have been entrenched or stuck in our own stories for so long, that we do not realise or see that there are different ways of viewing our situation or issue. It is not because you have not tried ‘hard enough’, because you have probably tried all the resources and strategies available to you.
Counselling gives you that space to have a different perspective, an opportunity to learn new and additional resources to gain insight and self awareness. As a Therapist, I hear what you are describing and reflect back the various things I am hearing; this might be the words you have spoken, but also the emotions, behaviours and how your issues might be affecting you physically. These normally happen so instantaneously that we are not aware of it. My role is to reflect these back to you, to offer you the space to pause and process through what is happening, gaining new perspectives and to consider a new way forward.
We might have become so comfortable living in a certain way, even though it is painful, that when we realise that there is a different way or perspective, it may feel too overwhelming or scary to even contemplate changing. I work with you step by step to navigate this new way forward.
Counselling is not like medicine in that you take a course of antibiotics and you are cured. Unlike medicine, therapy is not done ‘to you’; it is more like physiotherapy for your emotional, psychological and mental health. A Physiotherapist will give you exercises for rehabilitation, which can take weeks and months. How successful your rehabilitation depends on how much you engage with the exercises, even when it feels tedious. This is completely normal because you have never done this before. So it is with therapy. You are learning a new way of living, a new way of being. This will take time, but you will notice these benefits as you engage in the moment by moment and day by day process. Inner change is not instantaneous; it is the small faithful steps you take that will lead you to your destination.
I look forward to journeying with you in the process.