We all go through times of difficulty, crisis, loss, tension or uncertainty. Counselling is a service and a support to individuals and families who are facing life issues.
When do I need counselling?
when
- I feel stressed, anxious, confused
- I am having difficulty in a relationship
- I need to plan for the future
- I feel like talking over a problem with someone
- I need support in my personal or emotional life
- I want to change my lifestyle or habits
- I have just experienced a loss, bereavement, trauma
Counselling is
- a helping relationship
- an active listening skill
- positive unconditional respect for another person
- an awareness enhancing experience
Counselling is NOT
- telling another person what to do
- solving another person's problems
- creating a dependence on the counsellor
- boosting morale through a pep talk or instilling pleasant feelings
- taking sides in an argument
How do I choose a counsellor?
I would look for someone who
- makes me feel less stressed and frustrated
- boosts my self-confidence
- helps me to make better decisions
- keeps my information confidential
- treats me with respect, courtesy and kindness
- is genuinely interested in me and my problems
- is knowledgeable, understanding and competent
Qualified counsellors have undergone professional training in both the theory and practice of helping people with life issues. As professionals, they are skilled in structuring and guiding the counselling intervention and are effective in their response to individual needs.
(The above text is extracted and adapted from 'Do I need counselling?', a guide to professional counselling services published by the Singapore Association For Counselling.)
Comments
lublub said,
May 7, 2006 at 9:58 pm
lol, are counsellors really genuinely interested in the person and their problems? Does it get tiring sometimes to keep hearing negativity in ur daily job?
-curious about the job of a counsellor
Peggy said,
May 8, 2006 at 2:09 am
hi there lublub
to answer your queries :
in order for the counselling relationship to reap benefits for the person seeking counselling, an honest authentic relationship between the counsellor and her client is of utmost importance. A counsellor will not be able to help her client effectively if she is not genuinely interested in the latter’s life journey.
as with all jobs, we are only human and cannot be working 24/7. So counsellors have to be disciplined about their working hours to allow time for them to recharge and be ready for another day’s work.
hope this helps! : )
LIbrarian said,
May 8, 2006 at 11:14 am
I went thru shit during my break up (hey who doesn’t?) in a foreign land alone, besides friends from oversea, my counsellor was there when I cried and laugh. He never tell me things like how nasty my ex was or what should I do to win her back but he shared with me the skills on how to take care of myself and living in the moment. After 1 year, on our last session he told me I was ready to date again and true enough, I met my current gf a week after that!
onekell said,
May 8, 2006 at 1:36 pm
I wasn�t trying to be a counsellor, but it turns out I�ve been unwittingly doing the wrong things for a friend! Gah.
Now I need a counsellor too, feeling drained by the whole experience.
What should I say to someone who needs counselling, but has had an unfulfilling experience and does not trust counsellors in general?
peggy said,
May 8, 2006 at 4:08 pm
hi onekell
for a start, the above article has explained what counselling is about; u can share this info with the someone u have mentioned.
this person might have had a bad experience with a counsellor in the past or might be afraid that the counsellor will not be empathtic toward the person’s life issues, thus the distrust.
ultimately, the decision to seek counselling is a very personal one. As friends or family, the best we can do is to encourage the person to empower herself to explore the challenging issues in her life journey at this point in time. The decision would be hers to make.
Archy McNeill said,
June 23, 2006 at 6:40 pm
Where can I find a good, simple, basic website that explains good listening skills?
Thanks
[email protected]
Mier said,
June 24, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Do you mean 1. attending 2. paraphrasing 3. clarifying 4. perception thinking… ? Or something like that?
Flowers said,
September 18, 2006 at 10:26 am
Throughout history the ruling species bestowed favor upon people or cursed their bloodline into a pattern of disfavor for many generations to come. Now in the 21st century people must take it upon themselves to try to correct their family’s problems, undoing centuries worth of abuse and neglect.
Do your research. Appeal to the royalty of your forefathers for help. They are all still alive, for royalty has great favor, and your appeals will be heard. Obtain a sufficent list for some may not want to assist you; perhaps some of your family’s problems are internal.
Ask them for help, request guidance, for somewhere in your family hisotry one of your forefathers created an offense that cast your family into this pattern of disfavor. I suspect they will offer you clues, and when you decipher these clues go to those whom consider you an enemy and beg for foregiveness:::Find a path to an empithetic ear among your enemies and try to make amends.
Again through discovery obtain a respectable list in case some among them refuse to help.
Don’t forget to ask for foregiveness from the throne, the Counsel and the Management Team, for the source of all disfavor began with them:::they pushed your forefather into his offense and madee his decendants evil. Perhaps they didin’t like him or maybe your family was among those who had to pay for the entire village. We see this type of behavior today as they single out a family memeber to pay for the whole family and how they singled out Africa to pay for the human race.
Heal the disfavor with your enemies and with the Counsel/Management Team/ruling species, for the source of all disfavor began with them, ability to respect in spite of the experience being the final test of the disfavored before they ascend.
So don’t fall for it.
Many think different things. They think they are clones but if you didn’t experience that one week it goes from fertilized egg to full-grown adult then you are not a clone.
If you didin’t experience that week of conditioning they give to (evil) clones then you are not a clone.
“Heaven” is an elite place, and throughout history they pick and chose who they want and leave the rest behind to rot and die.
And the ball keeps rolling.
Don’t expect you are a clone. They sent people warnings in the 20th cnetury that life would change, and they subsequenlty began to alter people’s DNA, make them gargantuan, do behavioral issues like trans, etc.
It was present before but not among the peasantry.
Don’t believe any claims like wholesale replacement of the real for clones here on earth. This is not realistic.
They don’t want everybody.
The 20th century initiated the Age of the Disfavored, where the Counsel/Management Team do their very best to trip people up and cost them their chance, and they’ll tell them anything to accomplish this.
If you want to go to heaven you have to be good.
RSS feed for comments to this post