“Stan really helped me work through past pain and ongoing struggles. He listened and gave me practical steps to help me overcome my struggles. He had wisdom and encouragement to share and I never felt judged...

…Stan is professional and someone I know I can always talk to.”

“…nothing clears up a case so much as stating it to another person…” –Sherlock Holmes, Silver Blaze, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1894

Here are some things I have learned about counselling, which I hope you find helpful as you consider employing the services of a professional counsellor:

Counselling, is relational. Although there is a vast amount of scientific literature and research surrounding the counselling profession, to me it is not a medical process but a relational one. As a result it’s not always quantifiable or easy to explain.

A good counsellor will listen deeply to your story without judging you. Whether you come to a counsellor with grief, trauma, anxiety, confusion, shame, sadness, anger, or relationship concerns, counselling is helpful when you know you have been understood.

Counsellors will aim to be humble and respectful. This means they will let you know if they don’t quite understand and they won’t pretend to be an expert on your life. It may also mean they may challenge you, if and when you can trust that they have your best interest at heart.

Counselling has a purpose. This will usually be in the form of a goal set by yourself and the counsellor, which you can work together to achieve. Having a goal will help to keep your work on track and will allow you to gauge how helpful it is. Sometimes goals change or broaden as understanding deepens. This is often when counselling and psychotherapy begin to overlap and more longer term work can emerge (psychotherapy is usually understood to mean more longer term work, often on self and self-in-relationship).

This process can sometimes mean you travel through darker places or process strong or uncomfortable emotions; being a client of counselling means you don’t have to be alone with this.

A good counsellor should have good self awareness. Without this knowledge, we can all make relationships much more difficult than they need to be. This is true of counselling too. Supervision and good training are in place to support counsellors to know their own blind spots in awareness and skills so they can be most helpful to their clients.

Counselling requires commitment and time. Reaching toward a goal or working on your self, can sometimes be hard work and can take time to get there. Once you’ve decided your counsellor is a good fit and you’re going to work together, regular attendance at your booked sessions is an important commitment made by the client. This is primarily because having a consistent, set and uninterrupted time to work toward your goal is part of what makes counselling effective.  It’s also because your counsellor will have set this time aside for you and can’t afford to turn other clients away indefinitely! Notifying your counsellor two days in advance of a cancellation is a good guide, as this will ensure diaries can be managed!

Counselling normally involves exchanging services for an agreed fee. You will sometimes find you can discuss your fee with your counsellor if they offer negotiable fees. Some counsellors have a set fee for individual sessions and may charge a different amount for couple sessions. Sometimes your fee is based on your income – if for example you’re attending at a not-for-profit organisation. Counsellors have to pay for a number of important over head costs in order to maintain a quality service as described above. These may include, room rental, professional supervision fees, the cost of ongoing training and professional development, insurance and membership of their professional associations. They also (hopefully) aim to provide you with their undivided and uninterrupted attention for the hour.

Counselling has professional boundaries. This means that the counselling relationship is limited to the confidential security of the counselling room and it remains a professional engagement of services, usually for a fee. Counsellors don’t become involved with their clients outside of this in any way. Good counselling follows a code of ethics and seeks regular support and supervision. You can look up the Codes of Ethics under which I practice on the PACFA website and CCAA website.

Well I hope that is a helpful introduction. These are just some of my thoughts about counselling and some of the professional standards which apply to us Counsellors.

Finally, counsellors are not Wizards, (or Witches, hopefully). Therefore they don’t have a magic spell which will fix any problem in a puff of smoke. The real magic is in the work of listening and reflecting.

I look forward to hearing your story.

I can be contacted via email on:

stan.winn@yahoo.co.uk

Stan Winn

BSc, M Couns, CCAA Reg. Clinical (200978), PACFA Reg. Clinical (23760)