Losing your Muchness

“You used to be much more...'muchier'. You've lost your muchness.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Counselling is a broad therapy that is proven to help with a number of conditions such as anxiety, depression, stress, post-traumatic stress disorder, anger issues and other definable, concrete diagnoses. Life, however, is not one to let our need for putting things into neat boxes and categorising them stand in its way. There is a lot more to human experience and human distress than a few clearly-defined mental health issues.

When Alice is told that she has lost her 'muchness', the Mad Hatter was talking about an indefinable quality that made Alice who she was, which seemed to be lost in her confusion and uncertainty about who she is.

When we experience a similar confusion around life events like birth or death, when we are unhappy and want a new direction in life (even if we don’t yet know what that is) or we have found ourselves in a place we never imagined we would be, it is easy to lose our own muchness.

Counselling is a therapy in which we gain insights into our sense of Self, into who we are and who we want to be. It can be a support, giving us the time and space we need to change things, to talk things through, and to find meaning and purpose in our lives. It is cathartic, allowing us to express the hurt, pain and sadness we feel, helping us to find a way to come to terms with how life is for us and how it differs from how we would like it to be. It is a place in which you can truly begin to get to know yourself, and how that Self is in relation to the important people in your life.

Counselling has positive outcomes across a range of experiences and distresses because, in forming a therapeutic relationship with a counsellor that is focused on you, the counsellor can tailor their way of working not only to your particular situation, but also to you and how you experience your world and your Self. This is important because everyone is different and everyone’s situation is unique; human experience is so broad that no one solution will work for everyone.

Finding the right counsellor and way of working can feel daunting, particularly if you are feeling very distressed and would like things to settle quickly. However, it is worth phoning or contacting a few counsellors before you start therapy to help you make an informed choice that’s right for you.