Getting the most from counselling: 8 ways to support your journey

Seeking counselling is often a difficult decision. "Opening up to a stranger about my private life?" The thought alone might fill you with dread, even before you consider the cost of attending weekly sessions. It's natural to worry about time, money, or simply being heard. Yet, choosing to come for therapy is an important act of self-care. A step towards coping with your difficulties and creating change in your life.

You may have been struggling for years, or something sudden has left you feeling overwhelmed. Perhaps you've tried counselling before and felt stuck. Whatever the case, you've made the choice to do something about it, and now you want to know how to make the most of it.

In this article, I'll share eight ideas about how to approach counselling as a client. They're drawn from over a decade of experience as a therapist and from sitting in the client's chair myself. Use these ideas as food for thought rather than as steadfast rules. After all, each one of us is a unique individual, with our own personalities and life experiences. There's no right or wrong way to be a client.

Now, let's dive in.

8 tips to get the most out of counselling

1. Choose a counsellor you connect with

Feeling at ease with your counsellor builds the trust you need to open up. Directory profiles can only tell you so much. That's why it's worth scheduling short, introductory conversations with two to three therapists who appeal to you. Even if trusting others feels hard, these chats can give you a sense of whether their personality and approach feel right for you.

Over the years, many clients have shared that the connection and relationship they experienced in therapy made a profound difference to them. This aligns with research, which consistently shows that the therapeutic relationship is the most significant factor in determining outcomes in therapy, often outweighing the type of therapy used.  

For some, opening up in therapy is shaped by more than just personal trust. If you've faced marginalisation or discrimination, you may well wonder how much of that your therapist will truly understand. If you feel this could hold you back in sessions, consider discussing their experience with such issues. Even if they aren't part of a marginalised group, many therapists will be willing to reflect, learn, and stay curious about your experiences.

2. Consistency builds progress

The consistent and regular support counselling provides is an important part of growth and healing. By attending each session, you create a rhythm that builds trust in your therapist and allows a sense of continuity to arise. This can help you feel safer, more focused, and better able to explore what's going on underneath the surface.

When sessions are missed regularly, it can feel disjointed and make it harder to pick up where you left off. If you are someone who tends to bottle things up, you might find yourself needing extra time to offload, which can delay deeper exploration. On the other hand, if you tend to push your feelings away, it can make it even harder to connect to them in session.

For most people, weekly sessions tend to work best, especially in the early stages. But if you feel like you need more or less frequent support, then it's worth sharing this with your therapist. They may be able to accommodate this and, if not, it can still be fruitful to explore what is behind this feeling.

3. Try to welcome your whole self (even the messy bits)

It's natural to have mixed feelings or conflicting sides to yourself. Maybe one part of you feels confident while another is full of doubt. You might be grateful towards your parents overall, but also resentful for the ways they let you down.

Can you think of examples from your own life? How do you usually respond to the parts you don't like?

It's easy to get caught up in fighting ourselves or burying the parts we wish weren't there. But over time, this can become exhausting and wear us down. It also limits how well we can understand the important messages or stories these parts carry. We might find them confusing or frightening, but pushing them away won't silence them. It just makes them harder to hear, and so they continue to influence us, even when they're in the background.

See if you can get curious about the whole of you and bring this into the counselling room with you. Your therapist is there to understand you without judgement and help you explore your inner landscape with compassion and patience. As you allow different parts of yourself to be seen, they often become less rigid, making space for change.

Your therapist will support you to go at your own pace. You don't have to force vulnerability or pressure yourself to approach things before you feel able. Growth happens best when you feel safe enough to take small steps beyond your comfort zone. And if you're not ready, that's OK. Exploring what might help you get there can be an important part of the process.

4. Focus on your own experience

In therapy, it's common to want to talk about other people, especially when you're feeling hurt, frustrated or overwhelmed. Offloading can be valuable for releasing pent-up emotions and finding comfort. But if talking about others becomes the focus, you might find yourself feeling stuck. While your focus is on them, the possibilities for change within yourself can go unnoticed.

Your therapist can't help you save someone else or change their behaviour. What they can do is help you strengthen your sense of personal power and discover new ways of responding to your difficulties. Change begins with you, but it often ripples outwards, transforming your relationships and environment too.

5. Go beyond understanding. Allow yourself to feel.

It's also common for clients to focus on analysing emotions rather than feeling them. Talking about your feelings can create a sense of control as you work to understand them. But if you stay mostly in your head, you can miss the deeper shifts that come from experiencing emotions directly.

At times, it might feel necessary to keep feelings at arm's length, especially when they are overwhelming. But to really understand yourself and stay true to who you are, you need to create space to experience feelings in your body. You might notice a tight chest when you talk about your anxiety, or a sinking feeling in your stomach when you remember something painful. This can be even more important than understanding them in your mind. It may be challenging at first, but your therapist will be there to support you every step of the way.

6. Your feedback shapes the therapy

Therapy works best when it's shaped by your experience. If something doesn't sit right, or if it really clicked, then say so. Are your sessions flowing well? Do you feel stuck? Did something they said feel particularly meaningful, or rub you up the wrong way?

Therapists are human. Even the most experienced and empathic ones will miss the mark sometimes. By letting them know what is and isn't working, you create an opportunity to strengthen the relationship and to move past anything that might be getting in the way.

Giving feedback also helps you take ownership of the process. It means you are actively shaping the therapy to support your growth. The sense of collaboration this brings can be empowering, especially if you are more used to going with the flow rather than asking for what you need.

You don't have to say anything complicated. It can be simple, like, 'When you said XYZ, it really resonated with me. I want to spend more time exploring that'. Or, 'I felt a bit frustrated after our last session. Can we talk about it?'

If the idea of saying that out loud makes you anxious, you're not alone. Many people worry about hurting their therapist's feelings. The good news is that most therapists will want your feedback. They're trained to welcome and reflect on it, rather than taking it personally. Approaching and repairing any strains is part of nurturing a healthy relationship, whether that's in therapy or daily life.

Even if you're not ready to give feedback, simply talking about why it feels hard can be valuable. It can shed light on how you relate to others and offer insight into patterns that show up elsewhere in your life, too.

7. Use therapy as a testing ground

The safety of the therapeutic space encourages you to face your feelings and deepen your understanding of them. It gives you the chance to experience emotions without fighting them off or being overwhelmed by them. As you grow more familiar with this, try to carry the same openness into your daily life. Although this process often unfolds naturally, setting an intention to support it can make a real difference.

By nurturing your self-awareness, you can start to catch your patterns of thinking and feeling as they unfold. This mindful approach can lead to valuable insights and also provide you with opportunities to respond differently to yourself and others. For example, by pausing before reacting, showing yourself compassion, or expressing a need more openly at work. These real-world experiments can bring fresh energy and insight into your therapy sessions, helping you explore and overcome barriers to change.

This doesn't mean you have to be self-aware at all times. This would be draining and self-defeating. It simply means staying open to your experience when you can, and noticing when you start to pull away from it.

8. Check in on your expectations

You might feel the urge to push ahead as quickly as possible, especially if you're used to trying to fix things. That determination can be a strength, but it can also trip you up. When you're focused on getting somewhere fast, it leaves little space to accept where you are now. This then gets in the way of self-compassion and makes it hard to see some of the ways forward which are available to you.

If this sounds like you, try reminding yourself that lasting change usually happens in small steps and that it takes time. It's also completely normal to feel worse before you feel better, or find yourself struggling after a period of progress. This doesn't mean you are doing things wrong, or that you're back to square one. When you're opening up to your vulnerabilities and trying something new, a few bumps are part of the process.

Rest is part of the work, too. You don't need to be 'on' all the time. Sometimes the biggest shifts come when we pause and let things settle.

A good way of looking at growth is like walking along a mountain trail. The path doesn't go straight up. It winds its way through the terrain, sometimes going sideways, sometimes downwards, but always up again. Some stretches are steep, rocky, and exhausting. Others offer moments of rest and breathtaking views.

You might stumble. You might wonder if you've lost your way. But if you zoom out, you'll see that each step is part of the journey. Even the slow or painful ones are carrying you forward.

Moving forward

Therapy is a space that's shaped by both you and your therapist. These tips aren't about doing it 'right'. They're to support you in making the most of the space. Whether you're just starting out or already on your journey, keep coming back to what helps you feel safe, curious, and engaged. That's where change happens.

Therapy can be hard at times – confusing, emotional, and even uncomfortable. But it can also be freeing. I hope some of these ideas help you navigate the journey in a way that feels true to you.