Is counselling always a good thing?

[AutumnOrange]

I am currently 4 sessions in counselling via work and am starting to wonder how helpful it is. I feel so shit after each session. Stuff is dredged up by the counsellor that I had successfully buried. Talking about it won’t change it. So what is the point? I feel lower now than I did before counselling! Does anyone understand what I mean?

The problem is that people keep getting given things like 4/6/8 sessions and so many people have issues that run deeply and it can take years to work slowly through childhood traumas. I have complex PTSD due to childhood traumas and other adult ones. The ones from childhood take so fucking long to work through. I mean years. Not 4 bloody sessions! And I don't feel good after individual sessions but cumulatively they definitely have made a positive impact. I'm not with a random life coach or "counsellor" (which means nothing in the U.K., - anybody can call themselves that) but a doctorate level professional who has done substantial further training throughout her career. The difference between her and "counsellors" I've had previously is night and day.

And I should add that I'm not in the U.K. now which is why this extended therapy has even been an option.

Back to your situation and I'd go as far as to say it's unethical for a counsellor who knows the limit is 4 sessions to go into anything about your childhood. There's no way of knowing if a client has had serious traumas (such as DV and maternal suicide and then being left with the previously violent parent) and no time to do anything helpful with them if they have. Far better to stay focussed on small, achievable targets and be productive. Some counsellors are "curious" though (I'm did counsellor training myself and noticed this was a feature of some students - I wasn't impressed with the majority of fellow students!).

I am STRONGLY in favour of the mental healthcare system being radically altered.

Imagine if you had something physical wrong with you and there were no GPs. So instead of going to the GP and getting referred elsewhere or treated by them, you went to someone who had done a few weekend courses in "general healthcare", possibly over a year or so, who was presented as a professional. They have no way of knowing what they don't know and you don't realise the limit of their knowledge, because you assume they're actually professionally trained and keep up to date with therapeutic advances etc. I mean in order to know what therapy would be best for you, they'd actually have to be able to diagnose/categorise your symptoms and have an idea about possible causes of them, if undisclosed.

Different therapies are definitely useful in different circumstances OP, but you need someone who knows what they're actually doing and then you also need to feel comfortable with them.

It's not you, it's not therapy per se, it's the inadequacy of the system.

In your last session(s), how about telling her you don't want to discuss the past, you need her to help you find a solution to the current problem.

I'm not a big fan of talking therapies. I've had some severe trauma similar to you (but not the same obviously), and it was mainly just time that got me through it. That and as time passed and my life progressed, it was OK to be happy or content. And acceptance. And having a sense of humour and perspective about life in general. And just not thinking about it, as you've said. Don't want to dredge it up. I have happy memories of that person, and can look back and know they did what they did to find their peace at the time, as they were in so much pain.

No I don't think it is. Someone in my family has done heaps of counselling. She has this impression of her dad which isn't at all true as somehow the therapist got her to think he was behaving in a certain way when he wasn't. (Not towards the family member cant say without outing) Her impression of him is completely wrong even though other members of the family have tried to tell her how things were.
It's really messed her up.
Counsellors aren't meant to give their views on the situation they are meant to get you to come to the conclusion yourself about why you're feeling as you and just guide you. However some just seem to draw their own conclusions and push them forward and it isn't always correct.
You shouldntfeel worse coming out of a session. Either stop going and find another therapist or spend the money on a gym membership or exercise class. Will do you more good.

OP you may never understand the reasons behind what happened in your past. But and I know its easy for me to say but its in the past. You can't change it. Shut the door on it.
However open a new door to... what you can change, whats happening now. No one is naturally organised, its a skill. You need a friend you trust to help you to sort a system that works for you or try their system. That will help unclutter your mind and give your mind a rest.

Runmybathforme · Today 21:29

For me, I would never do it. I cope with my grief by ' putting it in a box '. It sits there, inside me, and that enables me to live a fairly happy life. Nothing will changed by talking about it, the worst thing I could do is go over it all again. I can talk to my DH anytime I need to, and he totally understands when a few tears escape.

This is me too.

Putting things in a box is also my way of dealing with loss and other negative times in my life.

I appreciate that for many people this won't work, however I also feel that the 'keep talking' message isn't always helpful, and that half arsed workplace arranged counselling could do more harm than good.

@Elleherd

"How do you learn to value yourself and feel worthwhile? I wish I knew too. I've tried quite a lot of things to change my sense of self. "

I've Never yet met anyone who has been able to establish self-esteem when there wasn't any.

@MsEverywhere , please can you elaborate on what exactly you dislike about person centred and humanistic approach?

You can use your session how you want. If you want to talk, ask about coping strategies or support while you action some things then that's the support you should get.
Counselling should provide the support you want and need at that time.

This is exactly why I haven’t had counselling since my DH died in his 30s. Talking about it isn’t going to bring him back nor do I want to reframe his death as a fabulous opportunity for growth. It’s just shit. But we’re cracking on.

I suffered childhood trauma and after 31 years of trying every type of therapy under the sun my life is finally starting to fall into place.
Part of the problem is that it can take many years to figure out what the right therapy is because you don't necessarily know what caused your problems.
I had no idea how neglected I was as a baby/infant.

If you suffered childhood trauma I think you need to spend a lot of time on yourself outside of the therapy, ie reading voraciously about how your mind works and the defence mechanisms it constructed so you could survive.

I agree that six sessions of surface level counselling are unlikely to resolve anything, and CBT is unlikely to help anyone with anything deeper than mild situational anxiety.

However, I an a HUGE advocate of psychodynamic therapy - where you do dredge everything up from your past and understand how it’s subconsciously shaped your perception of self and interpersonal relationships. I did this for three years. It was absolutely transformative - it doesn’t try and change the past or reframe it or see it as something to grow from, but talking in detail about past traumas and thinking about how I felt at the time absolutely did lead me to reach conclusions about how those things were still impacting me.

Until I did this, I had no idea why I kept having toxic, short, failed relationships, why I was so sensitive to rejection, why I had such trouble regulating my emotions. I wanted to change but CBT didn’t even scratch the surface of the issues. It was absolutely necessary for me to rake over the past in minute detail to understand how it had shaped my behaviour.

I can honestly say I’m a different person and I absolutely have grown self esteem and self worth where there wasn’t any. It is possible. I think people tend to give up at the first hurdle though as it does feel worse before it gets better, but you have to go through that to come out the other side and accept it’ll be difficult and painful before it starts making sense.

I’d do that 100 times over rather than bottling stuff up or locking it away, that’s a sure fire way to ensure it all comes bursting out in the form of a full on breakdown. But you need an accredited and registered psychotherapist, not a self-described counsellor. I had to go private and obviously that’s not possible for everyone.

I have managed to build some up after a childhood with a (truly) narc and sadistic mother and abandoned by my father (he couldn't be near her..but apparently it was fine to leave little kids with her...). It has taken years of therapy and many stumbles. I'll never have the same level of self-esteem as my friends who grew up with a more normal childhood and two loving parents. But I don't feel like I deserve to be squashed under the dog poo on someone's shoe as an every day feeling either.

Tell your counsellor what you've posted. Ask them to put you back together a bit before you leave the session. Explain that you want to work on your stuff, but you need to leave the room able to function as a human.
I had this chat with mine once and it really helped.

I used to think that there were shit counselors but now I realise that there are also shit counseling ‘theoretical approaches’.
Part of the problem is that counselors don’t explain at the start what their approach means. They say what the name of their approach is, but that doesn’t mean anything to most people. So one said ‘ I take a person centred approach, I do n’t give advice’. Well I wasn’t wanting advice, just someone to help me think through options to move on in life, and I assumed all therapy was person Centre as I didn’t realize that meant they would say little as I was meant to bang on and miraculously heal myself!

So many friends have had rubbish experiences of counselors who don’t help and say next to nothing and I now realize it’s because they take that awful person centred / humanistic approach, and none of their counselors had explained to them what it meant at the start. So many people, like me, just won’t have realised that there are so many different approaches to counseling.

it actually makes me angry that so many people have such poor experiences, spending a fortune on therapy that is just not suitable for them, because they aren’t informed at the first session on the parameters and limits of the counseling approach.

OP, maybe a compassion based approach would work for you? Self compassion? Our local Mind have short courses on things like that, not run by counselors or tailored to you, so limited, but a free option?

Well you see that is what I thought too! Especially when she said it was person centred! But no! I was repeatedly told that she could not do any of those things you mention, or anything I wanted as that was ‘solution focused ’ and not part of her ‘theoretical framework’.

counsellers don’t do what you want. They work within their system.

@MsEverywhere I didn't realise that. It sounds like there's more demand for integrative counsellors. That's what I've had experience with and it's been very positive.

Thank you everyone for your responses - it has been helpful to read and I don’t feel like such a loser now for not ‘getting it’
So what do I do now? In layman’s terms 😳where do I go from here? my brain is a fog this morning.

@MsEverywhere I agree with you about therapists wanting to work within their specialised frameworks.
It is frustrating when you spend your session going through very difficult memories, and then it ends abruptly as time is over. It almost comes across lack of emapthy from them. I have also noticed that the clock is usually placed in a way only therapist can see. So if you are lost in the whirlwind of emotions while narrating past, it is difficult to keep track of time.
Least a therapist can do is to make sure there is some time left to soothe those emotions or highly aroused body from these painful memories.

Can you find a therapist specialising in trauma with integrative approach? Someone who has takem interest in different approaches and got training in them. I know it's easier said then done, plus some of these therapists are so expensive, beyond an average person's reach.

@AutumnOrange can you try a therapist with integrative approach, specialising in trauma. So they use a mix of tauma focused CBT, EMDR, and talking approaches?

If that's not possible, then tell your therapist how you feel after these sessions. And you need her help in soothing from this emotional state towards the end of the sessions Can you also look for trauma focused stretches online to do it yourself as they say stress stays in your body.

I think you need to be honest with your counsellor and work together to set some small achievable goals with the remainder of your sessions. It might be that you even just use the sessions to become clear on what you actually want. Sometimes it is easy to know everything that is wrong but more difficult to think about what we actually want and need instead.

I think the right kind of therapy at the right time with the right person can be beneficial. You might as well at least try and use the sessions to your advantage.

Do carry on though knowing it isn't going to change your past, many of us have pasts we would rather forget. Also, therapy alone isn't a magic wand to change your life. You are the one that changes it with the support of a therapist. Sadly, many people think therapists are magicians and they are often portrayed as such. Most often though it means clients having to take responsibility for their mental heath when the feel they have nothing left. That is the harsh truth of it.

Therapy for mental health is such a western concept. Let's also not forget that it can individualise problems where the blame is actually belongs to society. So, just also bare that in mind but don't let it stop you.

I have huge problems with so many types of counselling. It can be great, but ime more often than not it makes things worse and creates problems that weren't actually there.
Psychotherapy and trauma based therapies with a good clinician can be excellent, but they are not short term fixes that can be done in a set number of sessions. CBT is good and can be done in a short space of time. You need to have clear goals for it, so, in your situation e.g. reframing unhelpful thinking patterns that have been set by your past experiences and learning skills to do that so that your past doesn't continue to affect how you view your interactions in the future. No need to dredge up the past in depth to do that, but it is aware of the past and works to solve the problems it is causing you now.
Other than that, you sound like you would be better off with an occupational therapist to help you get on top of day to day tasks.

What made you start the counselling?
What are you hoping for if counselling could give you any result you wanted.

Genuinely interested not being an armchair psychologist.

I had some counselling once and found it a complete waste of time. All I was doing was crying over events that were long in the past, with the counsellor saying things like, 'that must have been awful for you,' and 'how did that make you feel?'

She did trot out the line 'it gets worse before it gets better' but I just thought she was quoting directly from a 'counselling for beginners' handbook.

I stopped after about six sessions. I didn't see the point and it felt like an expensive, one sided conversation.

AutumnOrange Thank you so much for posting this thread, there's been a lot of useful information posted on it. I hope some of it is helpful to you, I really empathize with fear of making things worse.

Been told to organize IAPT sessions following a diagnoses of functional cognitive disorder after seeking help for short term memory loss and confusion. (I thought either menopause or possibly early signs of dementia.)
Apparently it's a psychological reaction to disability, and CBT will help.

Everything else they had me do (stop making lists, not relying on writing down and revisiting how to use systems or items I struggled with, passwords, codes etc) has made my life even more of a mess, and I've been worried about demands to dredge up past stuff when what I need is focused solutions to dealing with the present better.

I’ve have counselling twice.

Once was an internet thing when I was trying
to extricate from a toxic relationship.

The counsellor kind of let me lean on her like a friend - but like a very very stable and undemanding friend. She stopped me feeling so massively alone as I was stepping out of this situation & my head was full of stuff I couldn’t talk about IRL. She gave me some perspectives on what the other person was feeling (I’m autistic - so I benefit from
coaching on that kind of thing).

Upthread someone was skeptical about the ‘talk and talk and talk ’ model - but at the end of it, since it was all done in writing, I could read back over myself & see my ‘patterns’ for myself - the way that I couldn’t as I was living them. That has made it easier to have a sense of perspective on things going forwards.

Then I had a highly qualified, highly recommended IRL psychologist who dropped me abruptly after two months for being ‘too much’. That was really damaging to me -
and I wouldn’t have therapy again because I don’t think it’s worth the risk.

As a client, you give the therapist a lot of power over you.