About this counsellor

[Mercutioandtybalt]

I went wanting to be helped (of course) and so I shared my honest feelings of unhappiness, worthlessness, low self esteem and misery.

She listened then said "erm, well, I am not sure how I can help you then!"

I was

You definitely need to shop around. I think the actual type of therapy matters much less than the connection with the therapist.

I supervise trainee therapists and really there's quite a few going through that I know will get weeded out as they're not cut out for it. Most of them self select out as usually with therapy training and the compulsory therapy comes awareness.

And there's some right dodgy ones being an unregulated industry. Like any job there's going to be a number of outright liars and manipulators.

Wishing you lots of luck

What a rubbish counsellor. People can try and explain away her judgement or relate it back to some vague kind of ethos about counselling... but that becomes an exercise in thought-bending and excusing a counsellor who hasn't done a good job.

If this counsellor had done her job correctly, her frankly odd and harmful judgement would have either never happened, or the counsellor should have explained herself better if what she really meant was something else entirely.

If she felt the OP was labouring under a misapprehension about how the therapeutic process works, such as believing that the counsellor was going to cure her / tell her solutions then the counsellor needed to explain what the reality of the process actually is and how it can help people, and the different roles etc. There's no excuse for such an unprofessional and odd attitude to be honest!

Any counsellor worth their salt will know how to help a client, even if it's by suggesting another form of counselling would be more suited to the clients needs... not just saying incompetently 'I don't know how to help you then'!!!

Sounds like the counsellor was so incompetent that she expected the client to lead the process and give the counsellor solutions and basically tell her how to do her job. Which is utterly inappropriate!

So I think it's really important that you come away from that bad experience understanding that

1. It's not your fault the counsellor didn't know how to do her job!
2. You are not 'unhelp-able' or beyond help in some way - that's what an incompetent counsellor can end up leaving their client believing, no good counsellor would blame the client in this way!
3. And finally, not all counsellor are this shit!

Can you try another one? Or get referred to a counselling service via your gp, as then if you get a counsellor who you don't click with (or who is rubbish!), you can swap and they'll find another one who you can build a productive therapeutic relationship with.

I've had awful ones and also amazingly insightful and skilled therapists...

I wish I'd had the confidence in myself to see that the bad experiences were not on any way useful or something I had to go through, or my fault in any way. A bad counsellor can be extremely destructive, especially as people are at their most vulnerable when they are exposed to it.

On the other hand I've had a couple of amazing counsellors who have really helped me. It's worth it in the end.