Choosing A Counselor / Psychotherapist

This is the second of two articles on choosing the most important people you will need when going through a divorce. The first article which focuses on lawyers or solicitors is here.

Whats The Difference Between A Counsellor and Psychotherapist?
A question asked many times I fear. A psychological education unit head was once heard saying, “to your clients you are a counsellor, at parties you are a psychotherapist”. I don’t think Ive ever heard it better explained. However, some forms of counseling are based on deeper and more analytical methodologies that contrast with other more lighter approaches which more fit the description of counseling as an easier access service to the harder deeper analytical methods I would personally consider psychotherapy. counseling is about supporting someone through a trauma whereas psychotherapy is about understanding what is really going on for someone. Anyway, that’s my personal view today at twelve minutes past two in the afternoon.

counseling & psychotherapy as services have a good name to some and a bad name to others. As much as with any craft there are good examples of craftsman and bad yet counsellors & psychotherapists also struggle with a fair bit of bad publicity because of the denial people have over needing counseling & psychotherapy services. This tends to lead into counsellor bashing as a way to protect themselves from any attempt by helpful observers to guide them that way. A classic I once heard was when confronted with the truth by reading back a person’s own disturbed arguments when they rejected their children, “I don’t need a counsellor, all I need is my clairvoyant”. It’s a pity their clairvoyant wasn’t able to warn the individual of the mess their life became, and the challenge to the person’s children as they grew up.

In some countries around the world counseling & psychotherapy is more accepted and the benefits are well known. However in others (particularly in the UK) it is seen as a failure and perhaps even something to snigger about when it’s heard someone has been seen going to the local therapist unit. However, sadly, counseling & psychotherapy services have never been so widely needed than in today’s society.

When I moved from corporate life into counseling & psychotherapy & psychotherapy I recall the surprise on my ex-colleague’s face when I said I was having counseling & psychotherapy. She was surprised at my honesty. Admitting you need counseling & psychotherapy is not normally a well-publicised thing. In fact, the course I was attending required that you took counseling & psychotherapy and it certainly made a difference to my ability to counsel others because of the self-analysis that I undertook. I firmly believe that everyone should take some counseling & psychotherapy at some time in their life, and in particular, around their mid life. Avoiding this is missing out on an opportunity to review yourself and set you up for making the best of the rest of your life.

OK, so enough about why counseling & psychotherapy is so great (now I would say that wouldn’t I!) lets discuss a counsellor as a professional service that can help you overcome the grief of a relationship break-up and work out what you can do to avoid it happening again.

I also want to make something else clear. counseling & psychotherapy isnt about being with someone who will agree with everything you say and tell you the other party is all to blame. A good counsellor will challenge you to look at yourself too. Your counsellor should look for ways for you to consider yourself and why you act the way you do.

So, firstly, what sort of counseling & psychotherapy is available?

Being Counseled by a Friend.
Well, as much as a good friend will tell you ‘warts and all’ friends are by definition emotionally attached to you and so will not be in the best of places to give you an objective viewpoint. They may try at worse to rescue you by saving you from this horrible relationship and collude with you that its all the other person’s fault. this sort of colusion may put you back years or indefinately when there is an opportunity to get to the bottom of what is really happening for you and your estranged partner. Your friend may take you out for drinks and support you, but dont expect a friend to be a counselor.

Free Counseling & Psychotherapy
Often run by well experienced counsellors, free counseling & psychotherapy can be very helpful, especially at times of financial uncertainty. Additionally these associations normally take a specialist route, for example, relationship counseling & psychotherapy and domestic abuse. So you will find a lot of support and experience for your particular situation. The only problems with this I feel is that you may not get enough of their time because they will be limited in terms of how many sessions they can afford to offer and because of this more deeper self analysis to help you understand yourself probably wont happen, leaving you maybe with more questions than answers about why you are where you are you now. So depending on your needs, free maybe making things harder for you.

Online Counseling & Psychotherapy
If you look across the Internet you will see lots of different online counseling & psychotherapy services. Some with some high tech gadgets such as ‘whiteboards and conference rooms with web cams and so forth. By using these tools some aim to replace what can only be achieved in a face-to-face therapy session. However, for some clients I do understand that this is the only way in which they want to communicate with a counsellor. That’s OK, as long as you are motivated and will offer up all within the sessions. Online counseling & psychotherapy can also help some to move towards face to face counseling & psychotherapy over time too. Overall, if it works for you, then it’s going to be helpful to you. I offer my own online counseling & psychotherapy service here.

Watch out for large automated counseling services that use templated responses to speed up the service and keep the labour costs down. You deserve to be treated like a real person, so get yourself a real person to support you.

Private Counseling & Psychotherapy
A paid service that is offered within a safe and secure environment that is integral to the therapeutic process.

Private counsellors and psychotherapists either work from home or in units that are either co-operative or privately run therapy centres. These should be safe and comfortable without being too personal. Likewise, if a counsellor / psychotherapist works from a home room, the room needs to be absent of anything that helps the client personalise him or her (such as pictures of family members, golfing bags in the corner etc).

A good way to source counseling services would be to check out an online directory either for a specific issue such as Family & Marriage Counseling that could be located at www.counsel-search.com or find out the local associations in your region and contact them for suitable local counseling specialists.

Different Types of Counseling and Psychotherapy.

There are many approaches to counseling clients. Here are some key ones you may come across. It is important that you understand that not all counsellors are alike in their methods of counseling and psychotherapy, it could make a fundamental difference to how successful your sessions are.

Humanistic / Person Centred / Gestalt / Rogerian
This bunch are, from where I sit, somewhat unpopular these days. However Karl Rogers, the father of Humanistic methodologies was a great counsellor. These models focus on the client being able to find their own solution to their issues and as such, require a client to be in a fairly decent place to be able to start this. If however, you are somewhat traumatised by what is happening to you and people around you, you may not be in a place where you can do your own analysis without someone pushing you a little here and there to open your mind more. Unfortunately Humanistic therapist I feel are often used-used, hence the bad reputation of many.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
CBT is very popular right now. Maybe it wont always be popular. However it’s a well structured and used methodology for getting people to change their behaviour through therapy. A great example of this is agoraphobia or claustrophobia and provides a very supportive way for people to resolve many acute issues that people start to feel at some time in their life. This could be something that rises within you at a point of mid life trauma. You may find yourself unable to travel on trains because of a train accident you had many years ago, and now as you mature, with other stresses in your life, this could come back to bother you.

I have an almost amusing (oh ok it is amusing) anxiety myself I will share. I have a scare on my shin where the skin is thin and I don’t like it being knocked because it may bleed more easily than other places. At times of greater stress in my life I have feel very uncomfortable wearing short trousers with no socks such as in the summer. I almost could feel it hurting.

Nowadays you will be glad to hear I am fine about it. Really, Im fine. I don’t want to talk about it anymore, lets move on.

Brief Therapy
Brief therapy focuses on helping you move on quickly and get you back to coping with day-to-day living. This may work for you, and you will normally only have around 6 sessions, so if you are juggling children and your job you wont have too much lost time. However it may be not enough for you, so be aware of this. Additionally, there are many specialist theorists out there who will offer a one-day catchall therapy session.

Examples include calming people down and changing their behaviour through hypnosis. Amazingly there are many examples of these therapist solving people’s more acute social problems however I am not convinced (nor are the therapists themselves) that the issues a person comes with wont eventually return. However they do help people and it may be a great way for you to get something fixed and get back to living your life, however it wont help you solve anything about yourself that has got you to where you are today, so expect this to be a band aid for now.

Taking all that into consideration I don’t think that Brief Therapy is something that will help you in the context of mid life traumas. Mid life traumas are about coming to mid life and then having issues, which is really about trying to work out how you got here as part of resolving things, not just putting together a program to fix the problem that is being presented by a client.

Freudian / Jungian
These two gents are fathers of modern psychotherapy yet there are some therapists that will offer a pure approach to psychotherapy from either Freud or Jung. My personal view? Lots has development has taken place since these guys did great things. Plus they were products of their own time, particularly Freud who was quite affected by the Second World War in terms of how it influenced the development of his theories.

Psychodynamic
Ive left this to last because it is my own core model. So be warned, I have an opinion!

Psychodynamic counsellors, or rather psychotherapists use a number of techniques to understand and present to clients why they are who they are today, based on their past experiences. Psychodynamic therapists will not attempt so much to mend you but to make you aware and understand yourself so that you can choose if you want to continue to act the way you do.

Psychodynamic therapist will put a lot of time into understanding your past and upbringing to then compare and contrast with your behaviour today. For psychodynamic therapists the past has a lot to tell of someone’s present and raising this into your consciousness is a careful and gentle task.

Psychodynamic therapists will work with you over longer periods of time to understand you and all that touches your life to paint a picture to present back to you. This form of therapy will be best positioned to help anyone who is at a mid point in their lives and is looking to work out their past as well as their future.

Times can be hard when memories and experiences have to be dragged up again that you hoped would never have to be talked about again, but the very act of doing this will ultimately help you enormously.

Summary

So, in summary, a psychodynamic model is best suited to a mid life triggered trauma of some kind because it is a time in your life when you should be reviewing yourself and understanding yourself. It may be the first time you really get to understand yourself too. Don’t miss the opportunity.

Oh and yes, therapists do tend to use a range of models as a way to suit what is presented by a client at any moment. So you may find a mix going on but essentially, you need to understand what your therapist’s core model is before you choose to start your therapy with them.

What is useful is looking online at all the therapy websites nowadays. Particularly the private therapist websites. I don’t have one myself (at the time of writing) because Im not looking for more clients (other than a small few I can gain via my online advert here.) But they will give you a good idea of what is available online as well as, hopefully what is available more local to where you live.

Have you got any advice you would like to share about your situation? Post them here.

Guy

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Filed under: Depression, Self-Esteem & Anxiety, Mid-Life Crisis, Relationship Break-up

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