Counselling - practical advice??

[threestepsforward]

I'm posting on behalf of my dad, who is going through an awful time at the moment.

I don't want to go into details, but can anyone tell me if there is a type of counselling that gives practical advice, and offers opinions and options, rather than just listens and tries to get the person to arrive at their own conclusions? I guess it may not be called counselling in the strictest sense...

This concerns him and his wife but as yet she has refused to take part, but he wants to go on his own regardless, and possibly persuade her to join him down the line.

He doesn't want to explore his emotions so much as speak to someone who can offer him practical options to help resolve the current situation.

We, as family, can help up to a point, but there is always a bias there and I think it's really important he speak to someone impartial. He agrees and brought up the idea to me. I said I'd help to try and find the most appropriate help, but I'm really not sure myself.

Any suggestions gratefully received - I'll be back online tomorrow :)

Thanks so much

I'd suggest having a look at the BACP website, it gives an explanation of the different types of counselling available; that might give your dad an idea of the type of therapy that could suit him; many blend a number of different types of therapy.

Choose a few, then get him to phone up and talk to them. Most offer a free session to set out their terms and conditions, explain their therapy etc, which also gives the client time to work out if they like/could work with the counsellor.

My counsellor doesn't just listen, she summarises back to me what she thinks I said, asks me to clarify things, (gets me to identify my feelings; v hard), she occasionally gives her opinion of me and makes suggestions of how I could tackle issues, but she doesn't tell me to do x, y, z - that's up to me.

I'm not sure you would find a counsellor that would tell you what to do, practically or otherwise, the course of action a client takes has to come from within the client.

HTH

Some sort of life coach?

To be honest i think it will be difficult to find any type of counselling that isn't going to encourage him to explore what's going on for him on more on more than a purely practical level. If there was a clear course of action he would probably already know what to do - the right answer is going to come down to what feels right for him, and figuring that out will necessarily involve being willing to look at things a bit more deeply.

Having said that, there are a lot of different approaches. Some are more directive than others. And many counsellors even within the same approach will work differently. Phoning up and having initial sessions with a number of different people is a good idea - he needs to find someone that's going to be a good fit for him.

It also depends on what the issue is. You haven't said much but you did say it concerns him and his wife. If its a relationship issue maybe trying something like relate - even if he has to go on his own to start with - might be worth a try. Approaches like CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) are more to the point but work better for very specific problems or behaviours that someone wants to change - anxiety, negative thoughts, bad habits etc.

Looking at the BACP website is a good suggestion - why not start here and see if that gives you some ideas. He can also ask his GP for a referral although some GPs will be more clued up than others about pointing him in the right direction.

Thanks so much for the information...

I've looked at the website and have bookmarked some people who might be able to help him. The situation is a long-standing horrible mess between his wife (stepmum) and my sister - which has come to a head with the birth of his grandchild last year.

I think if he can persuade her to go with him down the line, some sort of mediation might be useful, just thinking out loud really.

I'm speaking to him in a few days and will show him the options I've bookmarked. Some of them state life-coaching among other things, which looks promising - at least for as long as he can't get her to go with him.

Thanks again :)

Actually, given what you've said, you might do well to look for either family counselling or mediation. Mediation can be good for improving communication between couples or family members without necessarily having to get into the depths of the emotional stuff.

I think mediation sounds like a good idea too yogagirl.

Trouble is my stepmum flatly refuses to go. I think I'll suggest to dad that he sees a counsellor on his own first to talk things through and get his head straight, and then provided he can persuade her, they can go on to mediation if he wants to.

It's all a horrible mess and this is rock bottom for them :(

Thanks again for your help :)

Good luck. x