to think that 'counselling' in any of its myriad guises is by and large a bloody waste of time?

[moondog]

At best a self-indulgence, at worst positively damaging.

When I complained to my maternity hospital about their shocking levels of care - due to their neglect my baby has some level of neurological impairment, and I will probably never physically recover - the hospital fobb me off by suggesting counselling for post traumatic stress. No apology, no indication as to how they might address the problems in how their systems work, no suggestion that our care was unusually poor. Instead, I should have counselling

Of course I am upset about what has happened, I have every reason to be. That anger is a normal, healthy human reaction. But by repeatedly suggesting counselling they make me seem neurotic, and avoid addressing what went wrong.

Counselling can be great under some circumstances. It is misused.

I had counselling after my son's death and found it helpful, mostly because discussing my feelings with family was not really an option, and a lot of my friends just did not know what to say and so would change the subject all the time, and in that respect I was glad it had been offered.

A few years later tho, I again had counselling during treatment for PND and found that it just was completely well, useless. In fact, I found it easier to talk to my friends then.

I certainly wouldn't consider those episodes to be a self-indulgence tho.

COunselling should be better regulated - but it is wrong and YABU to lump it all together and bin the whole shebang.

It can be extremely helpful, lifesaving, etc. if the right person is doing it. It can be a waste of time if the person having the counselling has been forced to go, as they will resist the process; and it can be a waste of time if the counsellor is not compatible with you or not trained properly.

Since this is you moondog - what would you suggest in its place? That everyone just "pulls their socks up and gets on with it" or gets medication or stops whinging? It's all very well to disparage but what alternatives have you got?

Moondog, why do you feel this?

pmsl @ choosyfloosy

YABVVVVU and totally careless of what reading that will make anyone in the early, terrifying stages of therapy feel.

YANBU in saying that crap counsellors are, well, crap.

But saying that therapy is self-indulgent makes me so mad I could spit! . Although you don't like the word therapist, either.

Or trained.

AIBU in saying that people who dismiss a treatment that, when done well, saves very many lives, are a waste of time?

It's not often I get properly angry reading posts on MN!

What are people supposed to do then? Give up and die?

Stupid OP, just a bit of provocation really.

I think all quasi-health professionals should be regulated, and what would be particularly useful for counseling would for all counselors to be very clear about their specialisation so that as a prospective client you could tell what sort of approach they took, and where their experience lay. This is especially important in making sure that you see someone that is likely to have an approach that works for your issue(s) and in managing expectations too.

I had some counseling when I started to fall apart at work as a result of my dh's fairly appalling behaviour at the time. As I come from a family that doesn't express their feelings and just "soldiers through" (moondog woudl no doubt approve) I had very few coping strategies, and although I talked at length with friends who were very supportive it didn't really help when I was on my own. The difference with the counselor (and she was a trained psychotherapist) is that she pushed me to think about the roots of what was wrong with my general approach to life that made me react in a way that was very bad for my mental health and helped me to overcome a lot of my negative thinking - or at least recognise when I was doing it.

Because of my very empowering experience I do sometime suggest that counseling might help other people who have got stuck in a mode of being that is very unhelpful. Why would I not?

As counseling is in general expensive and referrals hard to come by I don't think it's something most people do on a whim or whenever they feel down.

Although on the other hand we had a particularly difficult person at work who eventually took sick leave on the grounds of being "bullied" (every person who had worked for her said she bullied them, and she went off sick just at the point when one of them probably would have taken out a grievance). Sadly her counseling seemed to validate her feelings of being got at rather than figuring out why she was such an incredibly unhappy and manipulative person and trying to help her to heal. But then I think she needed proper psychiatric care, and the counselor obviously only had input from her, rather than any account of her behaviour, which I guess is a significant flaw in the approach.

moondog I disagree. Counselling can be enormously helpful but the problem is that many people do not choose their counsellor carefully. When my marriage hit the rocks I saw a work based counsellor who imo was absolutely shite. I then went for couple counselling with dh but this time I did some research and worked out what type of counsellor would best meet our needs.

I am a counsellor. 'Fully trained' Ill have you know. The training that I did was more vigorous than anything I have ever ever undertaken (I have an MSc in a completely unrelated subbject.) but agree that there were some very scary people on the course who I shudder to think are out there practicing. I work as a co-ordinator in a charity where all the counselling offered is free at the point of delivery. It doesnt work for everyone, but for many of the women that I see it is absolutely life saving and to say tis all hocum is nonsense. Our society is fractured and stupidly complex and a non judgemental theraputic space can help people find a way through. We are part funded by the NHS and have to gather a million stats about outcomes - so I do have the empirical evidence to back up effectiveness. I am a person centred therapist btw. We also offer CBT which is great for short term work. I do not wear dangly earrings but I do have an ikea sofa.

As someone who's had a fair bit of "therapy" over the years (self-indulgent, moi? ) due to anxiety issues I both agree and disagree with the op. I have to say that some of the so called help I received did more harm than good, largely due to both myself and said counsellors perceiving my problems to be greater than they were. (How do you make an anxious person worse? Spend ages analysing their problems/childhood and make them think about the anxiety all the time!).

I also had one so-called therapist who looking back was atrocious and should not have been allowed to practise. These people have enormous power as their clients/patients are invariably feeling very vulnerable. So there definitely needs to be more regulation in this profession.

Having said all that, sometimes just knowing I was going to see someone who I could chat to for an hour and get stuff off my chest was very therapeutic in itself. The last help I was given was CBT and I have found this very helpful - its very practical and focuses on way to help yourself now rather than endless naval-gazing.

I have to diisagree with Llama about counselling after bereavement.

It is only through intensive counselling that my son is the happy little boy he is today. My DH died when he was almost four, and along coping with a newborn, i struggled to help him. I could see him unravelling before my eyes and i felt powerless to help him. God knows i tried, but i was too close to him, too close to the hurt and pain. I sought out - and believe me it was a fecking fight and a half - help for him, and was lucky enough to find a wonderful woman who was just what he needed. Kind, sensitive and above all, safe. She gave him the room to be whatever he needed to be - he didn't have to be brave for me anymore, he could just be the frightened, scared and confused little boy he was.

Now i have a confident, smiley, raucous five year old. And i owe that to a wonderful counsellor who had the knowledge and skills to bring him back to me.

And the ironic thing? I'm a counsellor myself, working mainly with children...

counselling covers an awful lot of different situations

the two experiences I have come across lately involve:

a) a young child being taught CBT to deal with chronic pain- would you say that was a self-indulgence? of course it would be an awful lot nicer if we could remove the cause for dissatisfaction and give her lots of healthy exercise- but her condition is incurable and exercise is precisely what she can't do

b) three young children being offered counselling at school to deal with their feelings of rage during the year that their mother was slowly dying- how the hell were they supposed to "remove their cause for dissatisfaction"? unlike the children mentioned by hairymelon, these children do indeed seem to have come through it extremely well, the effect of the counselling seems to have been to help the younger boy not to take his feelings out physically on smaller children- I can't help thinking that is probably a good thing for him as well as for others

Although I am very sceptical in general about counselling - particularly its role as sole "treatment" for mental illness - I also disagree with llama about bereavement counselling. I imagine that specific situation related counselling such as bereavement counselling, or support with dv/sexual assault - is exactly where it can be extremely helpful - in dealing with the sort of difficult issues that friends/family can shy away from or be so caught up in their own feelings that they aren't in the right place to give an impartial ear.

well this thread has made me feel great thanks moondog. And there was me thinking that perhaps some counselling, once DH is better and I'm full phsically recovered, may help me to be able to trust him to come back here and live together. Obviously I'm wrong and being self-indulgent and should just deal with it all myself

I like others have had a varied experience with counselling. two lots of relationship counselling, one with Relate after my husband's infidelity - the counsellor would get irritated because we weren't shouting and screaming at each other, so in the end we stopped going. Also, she kept focussing on why I found the infidelity so upsetting (married less than a year!) and glossed over the reasons why my husband might have done it.

The second counsellor was years later, while we were splitting up. She helped us to sort out an amicable split, so we were able to manage it with the minimum of rows, upheavals etc and without traumatising the children more than necessary. She was fantastic, we both felt safe with her, and she helped us both to explain our feelings and actions to each other.

After my first child was stillborn, I was (obviously) terribly sad. The GP referred me for counselling, but I only had one session. The counsellor was very understanding, but said to me after we talked for a while, that what was going on was simply grief - I was responding in a completely normal way to a horrible tragic event. There was no need for counselling, it was time that would heal. That was fine with me, I had family and good friends I could unload to.

So, anecdotally, I would agree with others that some counselling is absolutely spot on and others not, and the character of the counsellor is very important - something that's hard to find out in advance..

bereavemnet counselling is very valuable. I am having it already as the Jessie May Trust allows you to talk through when your child dies. You cant talk to your friends about it as they say you are being morbid. But you need to talk about it.

YABU - I talked to a wonderful man only two or three times last year and he changed my outlook on life completely and made me feel entirely better.

Avril, re this bit

'When I complained to my maternity hospital about their shocking levels of care - due to their neglect my baby has some level of neurological impairment, and I will probably never physically recover - the hospital fobb me off by suggesting counselling for post traumatic stress. No apology, no indication as to how they might address the problems in how their systems work, no suggestion that our care was unusually poor. Instead, I should have counselling '

Another thing I am nodding at vigorously and it parallels my own experience when facing inexcusable level of incompetence. Rather sinister insinuation that myself and my reaction were at fault rather than their incompetence.

It is interesting to hear what everyone has to say (and so sorry yet so glad for all those people who have posted who have suffered and been helped).

I'm expressing an opinion and I don't actually think or expect peopel to agree with me.What's the point of a discussion of they do?

do you don't need to expect people to agree with you - but you can be at least a bit sensitive to how it's going to make people feel. Bull china shop spring to mind.

yeah. There's being blunt and being insensitive.

sorry - should stay off controversial threads at the moment. Ignore my last posts.

Of course I agree with the OP that counselling as a way of covering up a blunder is absolutely inexcusable. And to be fair, I have had some experience of that too.

But so many of us are in situations that can't be helped and never could be helped- dd's friends had to watch their mother die, dd has to live with the fact that she has an incurable condition.

Counselling at its best can help you to cope with the hand you have been dealt.

My therapy changed my life.

Self-indulgence? I can't even begin to say how offensive I find that.

MP put it well with her post Thu 17-Sep-09 21:54:05
So imo YABVVU

Makes me feel quite sad tbh that so many people hold this view

"my point is about counselling, rather than increasing the amount of emotional know-how amongst people/society in general, actaully makes it something less accessible that you need 'trained professionals' for, rather than soemthing we should all be clued up in. "

I can't see how you can reach that conclusion unless you are misunderstanding how (good) counselling works. Counselling isn't about the counsellor solving problems for you or making you feel better. Counselling is about helping you to find out what the real issues are and to then learn better ways to deal with these emotional problems yourself. You don't forget all those better ways the instant you walk out of the counsellor's door; they become part of your "toolbox" for dealing with emotional issues in the future.

I'll give you an example - I had counselling to help me through an extremely messy split with my abusive ex. It was hugely beneficial and I learned a lot. Some of the better ways of dealing with stuff that I learned there I have since passed on to my kids. In other words, counselling has certainly increased "emotional know-how" in my family.