counsellors who are no good at their jobs

[Kim666]

Over the years I have had a few counsellors. My experience is that it's a bit of a myth that there are these wonderful nonjudgmental people out there who just want to help.

I had one who when I mentioned that I'm unemployed she said "As far as I'm concerned, anyone who really wants a job can get one". First of all that's not true, secondly why would she say that?

I know some people will say that all counsellors will be good at their jobs, but they might just not suit you. Some will say that the problem must be with you.

I've heard things about people's experiences of counsellors that make me think there are people doing that job who shouldn't be doing it. A woman who was grieving the loss of a pet was told that she's just being stupid because it's just an animal. The boy who'd been abused who was told several times that when he grew up he would be an abuser too.

I'd like to know other people's experiences. I suspect that articulate middle-class people are less likely to have a problem.

It doesn’t require a high level of training (A level equivalent) to be a counsellor. The best are people with professional or life experience who have then qualified but some really are poor. I’m sorry you e had that experience. Try finding a psychotherapist if you want someone with more training or ask for recommendations.

Counsellors don't give advice and as I can't find the answers to problems, I feel it's not working and then I'm afraid of being shamed for not making an effort to work out my own answers to problems. I then feel the counsellor is not helping me. What's the point of seeing a counsellor when they say I should help myself when I'm told they are supposed to help me?

I've had a lot of counselling over the years and one totally changed my life for the better.

But.... Two or three stick out in my mind as being not great for me. Maybe someone else would get along with them though.

One I saw as a teen for binge eating. I remember it was in an office and she sat behind a desk and I sat opposite. Felt really weird. She didn't seem to really believe I had a problem and more than once just said "can you just not eat lots of the naughty foods?". It didn't sit well with me.

Another actually benefitted me in many ways and used EMDR very effectively with me. But I went back to her a couple of years later and we had a bit of a catch up at the beginning. Just so I could fill her in. Then she proceeded to tell me all about her new boyfriend and how generous he was. They'd gone to a little boutique and she had tried on lots of things and he whipped out a wad of cash and paid for it all. This was when I was thinking I was so hideous and awful I'd end up alone forever (I so desperately wanted to be loved at that time). I remember thinking "this session is costing my parents £70!". I found it really weird and was such a doormat I couldn't steer it towards more appropriate topics.

The counsellor who helped me most, made me see everything I could do and really just gave me the tools to improve my life. I ended up finishing feeling the best I'd ever felt about myself, and for the first time it wasn't wrapped up in how I looked.

I'm shocked and saddened by so many of the replies here.

I'm just at the beginning of training to be a counsellor. The training route is: level 2 course, level 3 course, then the big/much longer level 4 course (part time is two years)... at the end of this is the only point where you should be working as a counsellor. (These are vocational courses, all involving actually practising counselling skills.) There's further courses and academic study/degrees you can do, but that's the minimum. (Then of course you'd want to be learning more and keeping skills up to date (CPD) plus having supervision, plus actually following ethical codes and codes of practice to be officially registered as a counsellor.)

So... I'm near the end of level 2. Very very early on in training. But even I can see thay counsellors mentioned on this thread are doing MAJOR things wrong. I'd fail my course for these! Why the hell haven't they been stopped before now?

Huge, huge ethical breaches - wildy breaking confidentiality, victim blaming, "counsellors" with their own huge difficulties projecting onto clients, bullying clients...
Counsellors who never seemed to have learned about basic counselling techniques, or things like transference, so are responding to the client based on their own emotional response. Bloody hell!

Also, one of the things that's been drilled into us from day one is that counselling is not about giving advice. It's about supporting the client to become more aware of themselves, their feelings, what's influencing them, in a supportive environment. (Paraphrasing a bit, only level 2 atm!) So even the relatively minor stuff mentioned on this thread is bad practice!

Are they mostly people who aren't actually trained or accredited? Anyone can call themselves a counsellor or therapist, unfortunately. But some of these examples sound like they're people actually working in official services! They must be qualified, surely? So it's the supervision or some kind of ongoing checking up on them that's missing.