How do you find a good counsellor, what type do you look for and can you get it on the NHS

[fairyfly]

Any ideas?

FF - give me a shout on msn and i will help you out

i had counselling many years ago in my early 20s and then a short course of CBT a few years back following a car accident..

how are you doing hun?????

I'm fine thankyou. I have been put on a waiting list for the gp's counsellor so will see when i manage to get an appointment. Hope you are feeling a little better Mia

hi fairyfly

just noticed your message, how are you feeling now?
im not too bad, on new ad's so hope they make me feel better!

Hello stranger!

Are you doing your nursing training? (sorry out of touch!) I work for the NHS and nearly every one now has a staff counsellor, so if you are, you could get in touch with them. I used ours a few years ago when I was very very unhappy and she was totally wonderful.

Hope you and the boys are all doing well.
love lili

Hi Lillibet, how are you, are you married? No im studying art and media instead, fancied something a little less stressful and really enjoying painting again. Nice to heear from you hope tutb is well too.
Mia, glad they are more suiterd to you and i hope it keeps up.
Just had a phone call and the waiting list is 32 bloody weeks

Rang up the college counsellor, i can start two weeks tomorrow. I asked her what type she specialised in and this is what she told me;
TA, Guided Imagery, Slightly person centred but mostly egan based, very pro active though. She also uses guided imagery which she informed me was reliving something that hurt, i informed her no thanks.
Can anyone translate wtf she is going to do.

TA is probably short for transactional analysis, not sure what this is tho(!)don't know anything more about the rest, sorry. maybe if you have a google??

been googling!

a web site with some general info on different types of counselling:-

www.valmillscounselling.co.uk/

Why not just go and give it a try for one session - you don't have to go back if it's weird or something you are not comfortable with.

Not Married yet - 13 weeks on Friday [gulp]

Your course sounds good - I've started an OU thing - takes up so much time - that's why I've been quiet on here but I can feel the pull dragging me back

don't want to hijack... but someone suggested group therapy to me..(particularly in relation to family issues)

anyone tried it - is it/does it sound any good?

I stopped my ou course but held onto my points fwiw lillibet, far too heavy for me at the moment. How exciting good luck Lillibet!
Unicorn you not hijacking i would love to know that aswell, sounds awful
Janh found a few links on ta just incase anyone else is interested in it here

unicorn, I had group therapy. I really really didn't want to do it, because speaking to people is my biggest problem, but I stuck it out & it worked where all other therapy had failed. Mine was a lot of family problems and they put you with people with similar sorts of issues so you can support each other. It felt really weird to start with but the first time I was able to contribute to solving someone else's problem I felt great! (& it is so much easier to deal with someone else's problems than your own). I would recommend it.

They've just had a cancellation at the Doctors and i can start today at 5. The counsellor sounds so stern and serious on the phone. Not sure if im going to connect with her at all.
Anyway i'm absolutely crapping myself. The reason i think i cope with stuff and feel ok is because for the majority of the time i don't think about things (apart from on friday, sorry janh and thanks). I'm starting to wonder why the hell i signed up for this, i am going to sit in a room for an hour and discuss being left alone with two kids, struggling to get out of a huge hole and how scared i am that i can't achieve it and the fact i put somone in prison etc.
I just feel that if i go i'm going to get home this evening and feel bloody awful. What is it like with the first session? I am really wondering about what benefit this will be if i stop and think about how crap things have become then i may just collapse in a heap.
I believe in life you just got on with the shit that is thrown at you sometimes, and sitting in a room and probably crying doesn't sound like a great answer to the things that stress me anyway.
Do you think it is worth going?

It is surely worth going the once just so you can find out if it is going to be any use or you can relate to the counsellor. I am just thinking of starting on this sort of path and I feel just as dubious as you, but I feel you have to give things a go once. Good luck.

grr - just posted this and it crashed
what type of counsellor is she ff?

Thanks Lonelymum , good luck with it.
Not sure Nasa, i asked my doctor when he reffered me and he just said a broad spectrum of everything, whatever that means.

I think it is worth going FF, definitely. I'd be cacking my pants too, but it really is worth a try.

hmmm - I would ask her at the start to explain what type of techniques/counselling therapies they specialise in and get her to explain what they mean. Give it a chance though - counselling is an unnatural situation and it definitely feels odd when you first start takling to them but when it works it's brilliant. And a good counsellor should make it feel like it's worthwhile.

sorry that should be "what techniques SHE specialises in"

I'll try and ring her Nasa to ask.
SM. I probably will go i just don't want to feel terrible tonight, not that anyone does. I also keep thinking of little britain

FWIW I think you've got a lot of guts to have asked for the referral in the first place ff. I can't bring myself to get to my doctor to ask for help, I just feel too ashamed of myself to ask for it. Stupid really. Hope it all goes well x

go ff - it's really easy to put stuff like this off but it's worth doing it. You probably won't feel as awful as you think. MY CBT counsellor was quite 'schoolmarmish' and not what I'd think of as typical counsellor type person but she was fantastic.

oh sm not at all, i was just advised by a hell of a lot of people after court that i should go, i think its rare that people tell you and eventually i persuded myself. I was just lucky as my problem became so public and therefore i had less to hide from.
Just rang her, god she sounds frightening.
She is trained in personal centred counselling, she has a degree in Transactional Psycho Therapy. Sometimes but very rarely she works with cognitive behavioural therapy, after looking at the brief referral notes she doubts we will be using that.
Make any sense to anyone?

don't know enough about all the different types of counselling to be able to advise you ff (only really know about CBT) but really, give it a go. Let us know how you get on. I bet some other Mumsnetter will be able to tell you better.