Are all counsellors dealing with their own shitty situations too?

[Whybeacounsellor]

So my DP and I have been noticing a new trend amongst our friends which is that between 45 and 50 they quit professional jobs to retrain as counsellors. Fair enough in a sense that they are of an age to offer some life experience and wisdom because who wants to offload onto a 28 year old?

But what’s striking is that the four people we know are all dealing in their own lives with some mind blowing shit particularly with their families. Person one - son deals drugs and another son was accused of indecent exposure. Husband has been having a very obvious affair but friend won’t accept or admit it. Person two - 3 recent bereavements in a row, one of which was very unexpected. Person three - teenage daughter being brought home by police several times, been expelled, social has got involved. Person four - father caught shoplifting and has brought massive shame on the family because, he’s actually a local solicitor so it’s been very public and in the local paper.

DP isn’t much of a deep thinker and thinks that this is just normal life stuff and has no bearing on a their decision to go into counselling. I on the other hand am more cynical about their motives in changing careers now and think there’s something a bit voyeuristic about wanting to hear about the ‘dirt’ and sad, awful things in other people’s lives. I wonder if they use their job to feel better about their own experiences.

YABU - no of course not, they’re motivated by wanting to help others

YANBU - they are basically driven by a need to know that other people have shitty lives too

A friend's BF who seems to be completely incapable of adult life or social norms (replying to a message, attending an event, not selling a gift, ghosting friends) and excuses himself with multiple (self) diagnosed conditions has drumroll...

Quit his job to study phycology and working as a support worker for SEN kids on the side, with the view to becoming a child phycologist.

So yeah you might be onto something. Though in his case I think it's far more about wanting to study himself.

I don’t know that having a seemingly healthy life is a prerequisite to train to be a counsellor. It seems like it is a good idea to be stable and well adjusted before training but that isn’t what I’ve seen in people who’ve trained for this line of work.

it is a science, a social science so maybe it’s just another skill set like any other job and doesn’t necessarily require one to have a wholly sorted out life. Besides people who appear healthy and sorted can live deeply deceiving lives, double lives or be deeply neurotic in less obvious ways.

as for “needing to know that other people have shitty lives too” one doesn’t have to change careers to know this, simple daily observation can provide that information. And it isn’t just people with so-called shitty lives who seek counselling, some just want to improve certain areas of their already basically healthy well functioning lives so they attend psychotherapy or counselling.

Doesn’t everyone have shit going on in their lives though?

Do you not think it's more likely that they have received counselling due to said shitty situations and found it beneficial and therefore wanted to pass on what they found helpful to others in similar situations?

I work in a similar role and I often find that some of the best social workers/ youth workers/counsellors are those who have been through the process themselves and really "get it".

In a way its probably also helpful for them to feel they're enacting something positive out of an otherwise difficult situation and I don't think that's a bad thing provided they're in control and aware of that and manage it through the counselling and supervision they'll receive as part of their role.

That’s just reminded me of a really old boyfriend. He’d be person number five. He’s been bankrolled all his life by very wealthy parents who believe that he’s going to be a writer. By the age of 52 he’d spent about ten years on a phd and then worked in a charity shop. Fair enough. But now he’s training to be a counsellor. He’s never written his book and from what I can see on social media is quite bitter about this.

I have 3 friends who have re trained to become counsellors in their 40s

1 is really judgemental rich girl, posh background, now midst brutal divorce, definitely not in a place to counsel others

2 nice but CSA in her childhood, abusive parents, thinks kids should be prescribed puberty blockers

3 used to be a drug addict, complete hippy dippy, nice person but I wouldn’t take advice from her on many things

This is what DP thinks

There are a lot of people who train as counsellors who have experienced their own traumas. Same for many helping professions. I really hope most aren't driven by a need to see other people's lives are shitty but because they've worked through their own traumas and want to use their skills to help others. Any decent counselling training includes the counsellor being in their own therapy and receiving regular supervision where worries about their own emotions are addressed. Boundaries should be part of the training. For example I'm part qualified in play therapy but found when I did the first stage that I wasn't in the right emotional or practical space to start my clinical work till much later than everyone else. It was the right thing for me and now I'm doing the next stage of training I'm a lot more sorted and ready to go with the group. A poor counselling course won't look out for that and sadly counsellor is not a protected title. So I could just start randomly calling myself one now, but my voluntary registration wouldn't permit that

Also, what a luxury to quit and retrain as a counsellor

Interesting. I wouldn’t want counselling from any of the five people I have mentioned above mainly because none of them are very observant and a couple are self absorbed. One is actually quite nasty to her own DC.

So much stress and difficulty comes with training then being a counsellor I’d be highly surprised to find any counsellor who does it to feel better about themselves. In fact, when you counsel people, you don’t really absorb or deeply think over other lives because they are your client, you are professional and are instead thinking about the best response and how to help them. It would also be a very expensive way to achieve this! Counselling training is very expensive.

Statistically there is probably some people out there doing as you say, but I don’t think they’d get very far, and on the whole, not many at all.

Many people who have been through troubles are drawn to using their experiences/pain (at least when they first start training and don’t then realise it’s not appropriate in counselling to ‘use’ these per say in the counselling room) to help others.

I also think many people may retrain after retirement thinking they’ll make quite a bit of money which is actually fairly hard to do and takes a long time.

But most people are probably motivated by wanting to help others and have an interesting, varied career.

Counsellors are also just people too who experience the regular problems and dramas of life- this doesn’t stop whatever your career is.

(edited as I pressed send too early by accident)

My theory is that anyone interested in mental health or psychology type stuff has been through something of that nature themselves that they needed help for and wants to do good for others - however the chances are they are still messed up themselves tbh. Easier to sort others problems out than your own.

The nhs will need loads more counsellors and psychologists to deal with everyone messed up after lockdown and the lack of personal resilience in our kids.

There are under and post graduate loans many people qualify for and some employers like mine will pay for you to do further study as part of professional development. I've personally worked two jobs and simultaneously done a degree (which I saved hard and paid for myself) in order to afford it. I don't think it's fair to say its a luxury when many work hard to afford it/ qualify.

Do you know who make really good counsellors? People who don't judge other people based on what's happening in their lives/ their income/ their past.

@easilydistracted1 What do you mean, it’s not a protected title? A couple call themselves therapists - is this protected? And what is the difference in the two jobs?

I imagine they mean that anyone could technically call themselves a counsellor or therapist having done some training but really what you'd want if you're looking for counselling is someone who's registered with and accredited by a professional body such as BACP who will provide a greater degree of regulation to those registered with them and have set criteria for registration, they will also only recognise certain counselling training and have a set amount of unpaid hours you need to have worked plus a set amount of counselling you need to have received etc.

I was a manager for a national counselling organisation many years ago. What was very obvious to me was that many people want to become counsellors and dabble in other people’s lives because they have significant problems of their own but won’t/can’t acknowledge them. We used to call them ‘back door clients’. I have never worked in such a toxic environment. It was like trying to deal with a bunch of tantrumming toddlers. I would say that around 20% of the counsellors I managed were mentally robust and stable. The remainder were a mass of neuroses and should never have been counselling others.

@Whybeacounsellor neither counsellor nor therapist is a protected title. Or play therapist. Or I think even psychotherapist. There are people who call themselves play therapists or art therapists who have done a one day course where as my training is 3-4 years. As @Lavender14 says a reputable counsellor will register with a voluntary regulatory body but its not a legal requirement. Social workers, drs, nurses need to be registered. Counsellor and therapy is much less regulated

@AppleDumplingWithCustard Interesting @easilydistracted1 I’m shocked by this. So there are people calling themselves‘therapists’ who have perhaps done very little training. Christ almighty, that’s awful.

Counsellor and therapist aren't protected titles, so it's possible to practice privately and call yourself those titles. Scary prospect for the lay public.

Counselling training can be very variable, from long courses that take time and commitment, to very short courses that really don't qualify you for anything. So i think a lot of people with their own 'issues' are drawn to it as a 'quick' thing to retrain in. Same for coaching.

Clinical Psychology training takes a 3 year doctorate, which takes at least a first degree and years of experience working to even get on to, so in my experience less likely to attract people looking for a quick fix. Not to say all psychologists are in perfect mental health, but I don't think it draws particularly on people experiencing their own problems.

I think 'lived experience ' of both difficulties and personal therapy could be very valuable for a therapist, but only when paired with considerable insight and ability to support oneself.

So many deeply fucked up people try to go into this field, it's understandable, but why I generally distrust it. Iain Lee is one, I was vaguely aware of him in the past, then used to watch him stream on twitch. I mean just from his streams he seemed a deeply dysfunctional individual with poor boundaries. Last I heard of him he was doing a counselling course...

I assumed you meant they retrained as clinical psychologists - minimum 3 years undergrad psychology study and at least an MA in counselling, with a certain number of hours of supervision completed. I wouldn't see anyone with less than that, plus several years' experience. You get what you pay for.

No, they’ve done these courses you can enroll on quite easily, I think there are different levels and they’re not taught in universities but in local colleges. None of the people I know have ever done a psychology degree. Their backgrounds are finance, education, admin, libraries. That’s my point - they left these jobs in their late 40s all to retrain as counsellors. It’s been very noticeable, and none of them mentioned before much of an interest in psychology.

YANBU - I'm a therapist (currently early 40s) and the amount of people going through some manor life crisis in late 40s/early 50s or who have been through some major stuff - and then they all believe that makes them qualified to be therapists is mind boggling. A close friend of mine is currently training to be a therapist and she's told me of how it is just getting worse: in her class is a woman whose daughter decided to live with her father post-divorce because the daughter was really gifted (the mother was massively resentful to the point that she told the teachers to deliberately mark the child down in.her exams "so she doesn't get a big head"), this woman had a full on breakdown and regularly sits in class talking about all the people she would like to kill, and that she knows to the tiniest detail how she would do it, whilst also condemning most of those who go to therapy as "whingers". It is appalling and it is forcing out those who are genuinely gifted in the area of therapy- because they cannot cope with the absolutely unsuitable people on their course.

I find this really worrying
exDP was struggling with his MH years ago and after a lot of persuading I managed to get him to seek help through our GP, as NHS waiting lists were so long - we asked about private options and our GP practice had a list of recommended ‘therapists’ we contacted one who he had quite a few sessions with - things he told me raised a few alarm bells, turned out they were not registered with any professional organisation eg BACP had little training and ended up doing untold damage with him
There was no comeback and many years later when he still really needs help he will not engage or trust counsellors due to this awful experience

To some extent, I think you're either good at counselling or you're not. Training can enhance that. The training can be good for personal development too.

Plenty of counsellors have been through stuff, will go through stuff, or are going through stuff. They are human and not immune to the ups and downs of life. Hopefully counsellors are aware of how their own experience affects their ability to counsel at the time, or in certain areas.