Counselling
The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) defines counselling as taking 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 dissatisfaction with life, or loss of sense of direction and purpose.
By listening attentively and patiently the counsellor can begin to perceive the difficulties from the client’s point of view and can help them 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 family or friends. Bottled up feelings such as anger, 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.
In this supportive, safe and confidential setting with acceptance and respect for the client offered by the counsellor, the relationship develops as does the trust between them. This enables a 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 finds ways to initiate change.
Many clients find counselling a liberating and empowering experience. They may feel nervous or daunted by first approaching a counsellor for help, however, the process and the feeling afterwards, are usually experienced as very positive and beneficial.
Counselling sessions usually last for 50 minutes or an hour depending on the practitioner and take place weekly but this can vary and may be fortnightly or monthly. Counselling may take time to feel as though it is working depending on the nature and number of problems being presented by the client. Sometimes a single or a few sessions are all that is needed. At other times, longer periods possibly months or up to a couple of years may be needed. The counsellor is there throughout to assist the client in their personal growth and development.
