Counselling - Who's the Expert?

A client comes to see a therapist because they are unhappy or need help with something. Why come? Because we can fix it for them? We’re all very different people with different backgrounds, goals and values. Because of this, we can’t know what’s right for anyone else and we don't claim to. 

So what do we do, then? A therapist listen and use all of their training and energy to empathise and deeply understand how the client experiences their life and how they feel about it.  How does that help? In a number of ways: it allows you time out to really focus on you; just being listened to in this way has a healing and energising power; it can put you in touch with a part of you (likely buried or unheard) that knows what’s best for you.

Deep inside every one of us lie all the answers we need. The tricky bit is finding them and, often, acting on them as they can be the answers we least want to hear. Have you ever been in a relationship that wasn’t healthy for you? And did you know in your gut that you had to leave it but dismissed that knowledge because you were too frightened to act on it even though you instinctively knew it was right?   

Counselling can help us to make contact with our own expertise and to trust it even when the action it suggests is terrifying.  Being listened to (and really heard) and having someone doing all they can to understand you and to come with you into the heart of who you really are and to discover what you really need can allow you to recognise your own wisdom. The point is that counselling is collaborative. The therapist doesn't do it to you.  We do it together and you find your answers.