Do I need counselling?

No. I don’t believe anyone needs counselling. This sounds too much of a judgment for me. I believe counselling is an opportunity for self-exploration, for growth and for personal development. Anyone who is interested in attending counselling can benefit from the experience. It’s not a question of whether someone needs it, but a question of whether someone wants it.

How many sessions do I need?

This depends largely on what your hopes, expectations or aims are for the counselling work you embark on. If you have an aim to work towards a specific ‘goal’ then you may find time-limited, brief counselling useful. This would usually be around six sessions, but there is no absolute rule here. If you feel stuck in depression for example and you have felt that way for some time then it might be more like up to twenty sessions may be most helpful. Again, there is no rule and you may feel better a lot quicker than this, equally you may wish to carry on longer in therapy. If you have many concerns or if you have an interest in a deeper exploration of yourself then counselling can go on for as long as it is of use to you. It is not uncommon for people to spend years in therapy, however my personal opinion would be that you should only do this if you genuinely are finding it useful and productive.

Will you give me advice?

Not typically. Counselling is an opportunity for you to take your own advice. To get in touch with your inner wisdom. To acknowledge your needs, wants, desires, fears, conflicts, inertia, trauma, potential, orientation and to listen to the messages that arise from them. A seed doesn’t need advice on how to grow into a plant, but it does need the right conditions to grow healthily and this is the aim of counselling.

Will you ‘psychoanalyse me’?

No, my role is to listen, try to understand and help facilitate your own healing process. I work closely and relationally with people; two people working together, not one person trying to ‘analyse’ the other or be smarter or superior in some way. I do of course use different theories to help me understand things that might be going on, however these are frameworks that hang at the back of my mind. At the forefront of my mind are the people sat in front of me and my intention of wishing to be supportive and helpful to them.

Can you give me a diagnosis or suggest medications?

No, I’m not medically trained to provide diagnosis or to give advice around medication. I don’t work in adherence to a ‘Medical Model’ of mental health which may suggest that people have something wrong with them (i.e. illnesses), rather I understand people’s distress in humanistic terms of thwarted human potential and inner conflict.

Do you work with [insert diagnosis here]?

I work with people, not labels. I take inspiration from Martin Buber’s ‘I -Thou’ philosophy which is about seeing and interacting with people as unique others, rather than categories, objects, an ‘It’. You are not ‘generalised anxiety disorder’ or whatever it might be, you are You. I work with You.