Counselling – My Experience

Counselling is a talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you and helping you find ways to deal with emotional issues. Sometimes the term ‘counselling’ is used to refer to talking therapies in general, but counselling is a therapy in its own right.

At an appointment, you’ll be encouraged to talk about your feelings and emotions with a trained therapist who will listen and support you without judging or criticising. The therapist can help you gain a better understanding of your feelings and thought processes; helping you find solutions to your problems. But, they won’t usually give advice or tell you what to do.

I had never considered that I had a need for counselling. Although I had heard good reports from friends and family about how counselling had helped them with depression and mental health issues. My initial thoughts were that it wouldn’t be for me.

However, after I lost Jordan, I decided to give it a try as it couldn’t make me feel any worse than I already did, so what did I have to lose.

The hardest bit is finding a good counsellor with whom you can work. It’s important to find someone you feel comfortable with and who makes you feel as though they can empathise with your issues and understand you. I did not find my first counsellor very helpful and after three sessions I decided to discontinue counselling – it wasn’t for me!

A month or two passed and I still felt terrible, I could not deal with my grief. A friend recommended another counsellor who practised person-centred counselling as well as other therapies – I decided to give her a try!

This was a different experience entirely and I immediately felt the benefit after only one session. I have continued to see this therapist for over a year now and I feel that she has helped me to find the inner strength to keep going. She has been invaluable in helping me deal with my grief. Had I not tried my second counsellor, my opinion of counselling would never have changed and I would never have gained the support I needed from my new counsellor.

What has this got to do with Addiction?

The same process can help with dependency and addiction. Although it may seem as though dependency and addiction are just that, there’s usually an underlying cause why it happens and why you’re more susceptible to dependency or addiction than maybe someone else. Counselling can help you question how your problems came about and hence, enable you to see past the dependency or addiction and begin to rebuild a life without it.