Is Counselling or Psychotherapy right for me?
If you’ve considered contacting a counsellor or psychotherapist and then stopped before you booked in, this post is for you. Maybe you got busy and just forgot when the urgency of the moment settled. There can be a whole host of questions or thoughts that can come up for people when they consider booking a counselling appointment, such as: Will counselling help me? Are things bad enough or am I ‘broken’ enough? Is this difficulty too small or too big for counselling?
What does it say about me if I am seeing a counsellor? What would people think about me if they ever found out? People will think I am weak. Often, this becomes, I will think I am weak if I go to counselling. Where do I start with counselling? Do I need a referral from a medical doctor? I’ve been to counselling before and it didn’t help—counselling isn’t for me. Which counsellor should I seek?
There is so much misunderstanding and stigma about counselling that often people wait until they feel they’ve hit rock bottom before they reach out. This BLOG post offers three key questions you can ask yourself if you are considering starting psychotherapy.
1. Am I curious about counselling and would I like to try counselling?
If the answer to this is, yes, then you are a great candidate for counselling. Full stop. There is no need to get a referral from a medical doctor. There is no need to justify the reasons why you do, or do not, need counselling to yourself or anyone else. You do not need a mental health diagnosis to come to counselling. If you are curious about counselling, and wonder what it is all about, you are a great candidate for counselling. What this likely says is that your answer to number 2 below, Is there something in my life I’d like to be different, is yes. It might be the kind of yes that is soft and subtle, and doesn’t really have a lot of clarity to it yet. And that is ok.
Together, you and your counsellor will explore all kinds of things going on in your life and you can determine if there are areas that could be useful for you to acknowledge, shift, or change.
If you’ve determined that you are interested to try counselling, this is enough. I encourage you to explore search engines such as Psychology Today, or CounsellingBC to see if you can find a counsellor who feels like a good fit for you.
Another question that you might ask yourself as you determine whether counselling or psychotherapy is right for you is the following:
2. Is there something in my life I’d like to be different or that I’d like support around?
If you’d wish for anything in life to be different, then counselling may be very helpful for you. There is often a stigma that to access mental health counselling, you should want a huge and dramatic change. You might want that. It’s possible, you don’t need that. You might find yourself weighing the pros and cons of counselling and wondering if it is valuable or worth it for you.
There are many reasons why you might want something to be different or that you might want support around. You might realize that the relationships you are in are not satisfying for you, or that your anxiety is starting to interfere with your life. You might find you are running and running and you’re constantly exhausted. Maybe you’re dealing with chronic pain or illness. Maybe you’ve recently received a mental health diagnosis. It really doesn’t matter. If you wish for something to be different or you wish to receive support around an area of your life, seeking out a counsellor who feels like a good fit for you would be your next step.
If you’ve determined that you’d like something to be different or that you’d like additional support with something, you might wish to consider the following question:
3. Am I willing/interested to learn, grow, and change?
The process of counselling is intended to help people reflect on their lives and learn about themselves so they can understand their circumstances more fully. This process is often full of opportunity to learn about yourself, about mental health or about others in your life. From there, counsellors and psychotherapists can help you grow and change in ways that feel authentic to you. Counsellors will never force change on you.
If you decide to come to counselling, together with your counsellor you will decide the areas where you are interested to learn, grow, and change. Counselling and psychotherapy can also help you gain perspective about the people and the world around you. This learning may be done in individual counselling, couple’s counselling (any pair that is in romantic relationship with one another), dyad counselling (any pair that is not a romantic relationship), or in group therapy.
Individual Counselling
In individual counselling, you come together with a therapist who will listen to your reflections on your life—contrary to popular belief—these don’t all have to be serious issues. The reasons people come to counselling are on a spectrum. These reasons range from personal growth and development for an already satisfying life to significant mental health struggles. You might find you are curious about why you do something, or that you are slightly dissatisfied by something in your life. Maybe you have a dream and you are having a hard time turning it into a reality.
These are all good reasons to come to counselling, as long as you are willing to learn, grow and change. Of course, counselling is helpful if you are struggling with ongoing conflict in a relationship and if you are in distress or experiencing dissatisfaction in an area of your life too. Even if you don’t know what you’d like to learn about, how you’d like to grown, or what you might wish to change, coming to counselling to talk to an external person who is independent from your life can help you to clarify what your goals might be for counselling.
Couples Counselling
In couple’s counselling, you come together with someone you are or have been in a romantic relationship with. Similarly, with couple’s counselling, your reasons for coming could be anything along a spectrum. You might feel like you’ve gotten sucked into a rut and wish for more excitement in your relationship, you might be on the verge or breaking up and hoping to fix things, or you might be seeking a way to separate or co-parent together. For couple’s counselling to be effective, you both need to be committed to learning, growing and changing. If one person drags an uninterested and unwilling partner to counselling, it is not likely to be effective.
There is a difference between a partner who is nervous to go to counselling, and a partner who just doesn’t have interest in learning and growing. It’s ok to be unsure or to be nervous. But if you’re sure, you have no interest in learning, growing or changing at all, counselling is unlikely to be helpful. If you are part of a couple where your partner is unwilling, I recommend starting individual counselling.
Dyad Counselling
In dyad counselling, you come together with someone in your life you wish to grow alongside. The list of people you could come to counselling or psychotherapy with is endless. It could be a parent and an adult child, business partners, siblings, etc. Similarly to couple’s counselling, if you are not both willing to come to learn, grow, and change, counselling might not be right for you at this time.
Group Therapy
In group therapy, you come together with a group of others who are all working towards the same goal. Again, as with all of the above areas, this goal could be on a spectrum: anywhere from seeking personal introspection and development such as a meditation workshop, to dealing with a significant issue like the loss of a loved one, PTSD, or chronic pain. Together, with other likeminded people, who are similarly struggling, you work towards a common goal in group therapy.
If you answer yes to any of these questions, Lavender Counselling can provide support. All of Lavender’s Counsellors offer a complimentary in office conversation so you can get a sense of them and find one who feels like they are a good fit for you. We welcome you to connect with us in person, in our Langley or Vancouver offices, online or by telephone.
