About CounsellingCounselling/Psychotherapy brings up many different feelings for people; some may feel that asking for help in this way is an admission of weakness or that they don't have any friends or family of their own to turn to. Sometimes for those of us that like to help others and maybe don't look after ourselves as well as we might, counselling is hard to think about because it feels self indulgent and it may be frightening to feel the spotlight will be on you!
There are many different approaches to counselling and of course people including counsellors are all different which is reflected in the way we work.
My training has mainly been in what is called psychodynamic counselling, which means literally psycho=mind, and dynamic=movement ( "psycho" has of course a darker feel as an abbreviation for psychopath). Psychodynamic refers to the idea that the way we feel and think is not fixed or static, rather it is active and can therefore change.Our "self" is complicated, made up of a combination of past experiences, our genes and the ongoing effects of the outside world and our interaction with people in our world.
Sometimes you might feel that you are reacting to people in a way that causes difficulties, maybe out of proportion to what is happening. Counsellling should be a place where this can be explored safely so that you can understand yourself better and think about what you might want to change.
It can feel like this contemplation of your "self" may lead to terrible thoughts of blame or guilt and these are difficult feelings, but remember it is sometimes easier to change yourself than change the world or other people! Sometimes changing our own behaviour can have an unexpected effect on the people around us.
