Counselling: What People Usually Expect – and What They Actually Find
Most people arrive to counselling hoping for relief; from anxiety, sadness, or confusion. They expect solutions, advice, or sometimes even sympathy. Yet what many find is something subtler, and often more meaningful.
Counselling isn’t a conversation in the usual sense. It’s not like speaking to a friend, and it doesn’t follow the rules of ordinary dialogue. It’s a space where pauses, hesitations, and even silence can reveal something hidden.
At first, people often feel surprised by this. They may wonder why the counsellor isn’t talking more, or why they’re being asked questions that seem unrelated to the problem. But over time, those questions open something up. They help us trace the shape of our suffering; the small repetitions and reactions that show how we relate to ourselves and others.
What people usually discover is that the aim of counselling isn’t to remove all difficulty. It’s to develop a new relationship to it. Some emotions don’t disappear; they transform.
By the time most people finish therapy, they haven’t “solved” their lives. They’ve learned to live them differently – with more understanding, compassion, and self-trust.
More on Counselling Book an AppointmentRecommended Reading:
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Irvin D. Yalom, The Gift of Therapy
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