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.

You are being incredably unresonable, and pretty hurtful, actually.

Would you say that someone was being self-indulgent for going to a "normal" doctors, for whatever reason, to make their life more comfortable and bareable? No, because that would be absolutely rediculous. Mental health is just as important, if not more so, than physical health. So someone trying to make sure they are feeling the best they possibly can is smart.

YABU

I don't believe there are huge swathes of people with no real problems who go for counselling because they feel a bit empty. People may seem to have no problems, but that's because they don't want to publicise them. Most of the people I know well have had really traumatic things happen to them, but they wouldn't admit that to the outside world.

It depends on what kind of counselling you are referring to. While I can see that for some issues, like bereavement, it might be useful just to talk about your experiences, this approach will not work for many other issues. A lot of other therapies are not about talking about experiences, they are about getting the individual to change their behaviour, by setting goals and then them making actual changes step by step (getting out and doing, which oddly, you claim counselling is not about).

MET has has been very successful in treating people with addictions, and it is all about doing. It does not involve talking about the root of someone's problems in a navel gazing manner.

So where are all these people with no real problems who just felt a bit empty? If a few of them do not appear on this thread then I am going to consider them an urban myth.

I think the claim that "On mumsnet counselling is quite often inappropriately recommended" is absolutely nonsense. I think it's far more sensible to recommend that a vulnerable perseon seek counselling than to encourage them to talk to people on the internet who will have their own 'issues' to project on people.

Can I have an example of where on MN counselling has been 'inappropriately recommended' and perhaps you'd like to advise us what would an 'appropriate' suggestion be?

I recently suggested someone should get counselling on MN. They started a thread about how women shouldn't complain about having to spend time with their children in the summer holidays. Their justification for this was that their own child had died.

I do think that poster needed counselling.

YABU

My personal experience of psychotherapy was outstanding once I found the right approach and therapist.

Besides that, you'll find that the emergency services recognise the importance of counselling, particularly in treating post-traumatic stress disorder. My local police force operates a system called Post Incident Colleague Support (PICS). Officers who have attended a violent crime or crash scene are offered PICS - ideally before going off duty, if not within a week. Allowing someone an early opportunity to speak for an hour without judgement or imterruption about the horrors they have seen is strong insurance polisy against developing full-blown PTSD. Many officers are simply trained in active listening skills in order to offer this service to colleagues (and the general public where necessary).

Apart from the human importance of this, it saves police forces £££s in sick pay and recruitment costs associated with a high turnover of burnt-out people. I expect that other emergency services operate something similar.

polisy policy

Dutchmanswife - I'm sorry if you felt upset about my comments about bereavement counselling - and anyone else too.

But I'm not suggesting that you or anyone else who has been helped by counselling or therapy should not have this kind of help, and certainly did not say you are self absorbed.

As i have said, I'm in no way anti-counselling.

But, I think it can be misused and overused, and that we are beginning to see it as an answer to all ills, and it is this attitude that is potentially harmful. Any problem and we are advised to seek an expert to talk to about it, when actually family, friends, and community might be just as helpful.

I think we are in danger of losing the ability to listen to each other and support each other in times of distress, because we think that a trained counsellor would do it better, or perhaps its that it would actually be easier (less upsetting for us) if a trained counsellor did it instead of us?

If you got to the bacp website and go to 'find a therapist' you will see that actually most counsellors DO state what their approach is and all should be happy to discuss this with you if it's unclear, so that you can see what type of approach would be best for you and your situation.

Of course it's inappropriate to suggest counselling after a hospital screw-up, but that's hardly leads to the conclusion that counselling per se is rubbish does it??!!

I think there are very few counsellors who would suggest that counselling is the ONLY treatment for mental illness. It's ONE option among many.

The bottom line is that counselling will NEVER work for you if you don't want it, so if you go when you don't really want to, of course it's not going to work.

I can't help but think a lot of people here are missing the basic point about what counselling is - which yes, is difficult to define succinctly. But it is NOT about sitting around going 'yes, yes, there there' while the person is really struggling, or about going 'I see what you mean' to someone who is 'navel-gazing' as you call it.

I think 'counsellors' of some description have always existed, it's just that they've only relatively recently been given a name, a professional body and a code of ethics, etc.

The attitude that previous generations never needed any of this nonsense fails to take into account the experience of the people who actually lived in those times.

All the young men who were traumatised by the First World War for instance. Read the Dorothy Sayers books for a start: Lord Peter himself is regularly unable to function due to flashbacks, his friend is taken into a mental hospital after a breakdown- Sayers is writing about something she had seen. There are plenty of other accounts, both in fiction and in memoirs.

And no, they couldn't all get through it by talking to their families. For one thing, because their families couldn't cope with hearing what they had been through. Because they would feel guilty. Families usually do.

Actually MillyR - I don't think that is a good example of someone who needed counselling.

Obviously theres the issue of how on earth can we know whether or not she needs counselling on the basis of some posts she made on the internet.

But I think you're making an assumption that because she is struggling to deal with the loss of her child that she must need counselling.

I think anyone in thtat sit needs to talk, and needs people to really listen and know just how terrible they are feeling - but why does it have to be a counsellor.

Yes, her post seemed odd, if thats the right word, but maybe just an 'odd' way of telling people she's not OK...Maybe in that situation it's difficult to jsut come out with it and say whats happened to you...

And if our response when we find out what has really happened/what is really upsetting someone, is, go and talk to someone else (a counsellor) about it, how does that make people feel?

Llamarama I couldn't agree more that listening well is an art that too few possess. It's hard to know whether it happens less now than in the past, though. My own family history is peppered with stories of people who "had a turn one day" and were found wondering the streets in their nightie, or beat someone up out of the blue, or some such, and I know I'm not the only one.

If you have family and friends who can listen confidentially, without judgement or comparison, for an extended period and with their full attention, then that's a true gift. Not many of us have that luxury.

To paraphrase your last point, I have to challenge the possibility that a counsellor "does it instead of us," though. A good counsellor wins your trust and then accompanies you while you explore anything difficult or frightening. It's not really possible for one person to resolve another's life story for them, but it is possible to be an objective companion while someone does it for themselves.

Oh really moondog. What a very juvenile OP. Get a grip.

moondog - clearly YABU.

The trouble with your claim that your opinion is based on your own experience is that in the OP you are making a judgement about the general uselfulness and worth of counselling for you and other people based solely on your own experience and opinion of counselling.

The particular language you have chosen in your OP implies that you feel those that are mentally ill, bereaved, alcohol addicted, coming out of abusive relationships e.t.c. and are having counselling are being self-indulgent in seeking help. I'm not sure if this was your intention or not but since it is a common discriminatory view which is used to perpetuate all kinds of abuse I think it could have been better phrased than "at best self-indulgence..."

It might not be unreasonable for you to say "AIBU to feel that in my life 'counselling' in any of its myriad guises has been by and large a bloody waste of time? At best a self-indulgence, at worst positively damaging." People could have asked you to explain your experience of counselling to see if it had led you to a reasonable conclusion or not in the context of your own experience.

Llamarama You seem to think that people having counselling are somehow 'weak' or 'inadeqaute' - 'How does it make them feel?' when someone suggests counselling???? As though they should feel shit that someone is suggesting a constructive and helpful path through emotional upheaval? What's WRONG with suggesting counselling?

Sorry but the normal 'friend or family' is NOT going to be able to 'just sit and listen' to someone who has lost a child, FFS. It would be enormously distressing for them and they will be terrified of saying the wrong thing (and after a few hours very possibly WOULD).

Counselling is a POSITIVE thing. You seem to have some funny ideas about mental distress.

Llamarama

I think that person is a good example of someone who needs counselling because:

1. Mumsnet AIBU is not a friend or family member that somebody can speak to. It is an internet forum on which people may be cruel to the bereaved individual.

1. The person was not really talking about their problem. They were misdirecting anger at other parents.

I think that in many situations it can be preferable to talk to someone who genuinely cares about you, rather than a trained counsellor. But there are also many situations where a counsellor is the better option.

I would tell someone in RL to get counselling rather than speak to me about an issue if I felt I was out of my depth, and particularly if they were misdirecting anger.

It is rather like if I decide to take my child to A & E. I don't think it makes me a failure as a parent just because I am out of my depth if they get certain ailments.

Well, I couldn't have predicted that particular brain-worm.
(blanket stitch your labia? dear lord)

DD would not be here had I not faced my childhood demons.

I can't even begin to explain the sense of liberation my therapy gave me. I Just wish I had addressed my issues earlier in life.

Need to step away now, starting to feel

Sweeping generalisation is sweeping.

I wonder how easy it is to speak to family members about your childhood abuse, or your feelings about the death of your mum (who will have been their mum too, or wife, or daughter). It's not a sign of society breakdown that we can't talk to families about everything; it's because we are close and what hurts us is going to hurt them.

I can't speak to my mum about all my angry feelings re dcs condition- because it's genetic and they have inherited it from her. How many abused children can speak to their families about the abuse without hurting them?

How are you supposed to tell close friends or family that you are suicidal? Or that you hear voices? See things? Are self harming? Are frightened that you are actually loosing your mind?

Therapists are a total God-send under those kind of circamstances.

moondog the tone of your op is pretty provocative and in some ways I think yabu but......I can see your point, and I'm a trainee cbt therapist!!

The phrase "he/she needs counselling" at the merest hint of any problem is one of my pet hates in the world of mental health/emotional trauma, God it winds me up!! Lots of people aren't suitable for anf never will be for "counselling" this applies particularly to the group I work with (adolescents) they don't want to talk and forcing it only makes them worse!! SOME do but many don't, family intervention is what's needed rather than individual counselling.

I've also seen the negative effects first hand of poor counselling, it nearly led to my sister becoming suicidal, the woman was a crackpot, so although I think there's some excellent people out there I am sceptical. I've also seen school counsellors do a lot of damage with the crap they come out with.

E.g. one girl floridly psychotic and v high risk, school counsellors pop psychology interpretation "it's just your angry side, you need to express it and come to terms with it" arghhhhh! She needed hospital, there and then!

I'd rather talk in terms of therapy, CBT, psychotherapy, family therapy etc. evidence based interventions that can actually do some good.

I also feel any from of therapy should be used in such away to increase mindfulness and acceptance and enhance skiil at dealing with life.

A 2 year course of DBT (dialectical behaviour therapy) for someone with borderline personality disorder is not self-indulgent it gives that person a chnace at a decent life, both for them and their loved ones and is a very useful intervention.

I also know of a psychotherapist who had daily psychotherapy for all 5 years of hertraining and continues tohave it now and will continue for the forseeable. Talking about yourself for 1 hour 5 days a week for 7 years??! Is that neccessary/dependence/ or self-indulgent? What skills is it equipping you with? How do you move on?

Also daily attendance at AA for recovering alcoholics, my friends father has been doing this for 10+ years. Another from of dependency but at least it's keeping him safe. Thereare lots of debates to be had.

Morningpaper - Where have I said that people who seek counselling are 'weak' or 'inadequate'???
I certainly do not think that, far from it.

I do however think that 'normal' family adn friends can listen to people they care about who are in emormous emotional distress.

It is precisly the attitude that you express, that surely they can't, that I object to.

Llama have you ever been on the other side of it, listening to someone you care about, admitting how low they feel? Or actually had to do so yourself? Regardless of how close you are to your family, sometimes it is damn near impossible to admit to them you are struggling, and just as difficult to hear it.