What is Counselling?

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.

Carl Rogers

It may be that you feel the need to address experiences from past or present difficulties. You may have suffered a loss, be it of a loved one, a job, or a piece of your identity. It may be that you find yourself suddenly struggling with day-to-day life, work, or relationships.

Sometimes the cause of our struggles can feel obvious and you may need to talk and explore how you feel about this and try to find a route to move forwards. Other times, our struggles feel like they come from nowhere or that they have always been in the background of our lives, not allowing us to be at peace.

It may be that a past event still feels like it lives on within you, and you feel that something is unresolved or stuck. Often unknown to us our past experiences, that we may feel that we have gotten over, live on in us and impact how we live, move and see ourselves in the world. Much of the work we do in counselling is about learning to accept our past selves and difficult experiences.

These experiences may have felt shameful, upsetting, embarrassing, or traumatic.

Often, we compartmentalise these experiences and our feelings and banish them into dark corners.

This approach can work in the short term, allowing us to feel like we are moving on and that we are in control. However, there often comes a time when this approach no longer works, and our feelings start to break through, overwhelming us. We are not made to live under such constant pressure, and eventually, we need to find a way out of it - to free ourselves from it.

Counselling is not a cure-all. It doesn’t work for every problem, or every situation. This being said, it can give you a unique lens and space to focus on your life, your self and your relationships and start to untangle the knots that build up in our lives, often from a very early age.

It gives you the time and emotional space to focus solely on yourself and to be seen, heard and emotionally held without judgement or expectation. Essentially, counselling offers you a safe, confidential and accepting environment to be able to explore and work through anything you feel you need or would like to bring.

Counselling gives us the space to talk freely about our feelings. Talking therapy helps us to step away from judging ourselves. Instead, we can learn to understand, accept and have compassion for the person that we were before and the person we are in the present. Changing the way we see and treat ourselves leads us towards feeling more empowered. In turn, we become more free to move through the world, our relationships and ourselves in the way we want and need - growing into a more peaceful state of being.