Credit Crunch Counselling

January 14th, 2009 by Eve Stephenson (Care To Listen)

We are currently experiencing what is commonly known as a global recession. This means that many businesses, both big and small, are falling by the wayside on a daily basis.

You only have to switch on the TV or radio to hear how many more people have been made unemployed, lost their houses or are facing financial ruin. Apparently this is the worst economic climate for the past 30 years, and just hearing this news is gloomy enough without having to find a way to survive it.

It looks as though the bubble has finally burst, house prices are falling, redundancies are imminent and belts are tightening all over the country.
Is it any wonder then that there are more and more of us experiencing some symptoms commonly associated with depression?

Feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Low self-esteem. Tearfulness. Feelings of guilt. Feeling irritable and intolerant of others. Lack of motivation and less interest, and difficulty in making decisions. Lack of enjoyment. Suicidal thoughts or thoughts of harming someone else. Feeling anxious or worried. Reduced sex drive. One of the difficult things about depression is that it frequently affects the way you interact with others, including: Not performing well at work. Taking part in fewer social activities and avoiding contact. Feeling isolated. Reduced hobbies and interests, and difficulties in home and family life. As you may be able to see there is a pattern developing here ~ the symptoms of depression result in us becoming socially isolated and being socially isolated adds to our depression. Counselling has long been recognised as being one of the most useful treatments for depression and has frequently been successful in helping clients to readjust their negative thought patterns and find a new sense of motivation that can result in them making some positive changes in their lives. So it would seem that counsellors should be very much in demand during this current economic climate BUT (and this is where we hit another snag.) the very people who could benefit from counselling are those who are least likely to think they can afford it. Those of us who have been hardest hit maybe so busy working out how they can pay the mortgage etc that they may not have considered how helpful counselling could be right now. Another school of thought could be that a short-term investment in some counselling sessions may be the very thing you need to help you get some sense of direction and clarity back into your life. Not all counselling has to be long term and it is possible to pre book a set number of sessions in order to deal with something very specific i.e. redundancy, relationship issues, depression etc. So perhaps it may worth considering how high on your current list of priorities counselling sessions should be??????