Finding counselling difficult

LegacyUser

I've been diagnosed with mild-moderate depression and my doctor recommended I try counselling.
I've only had two sessions so far but I'm contemplating if I should even bother going back for the remaining sessions.

In the first session I explained how I was feeling and what had led me to be depressed, but as a quite person who never says very much, it only took a few minutes. The counsellor didn't really say very much in response which threw me off a bit as I thought it would be more of a discussion as opposed to me just talking all the time. For the rest of the session I barely said anything. The counsellor asked me why I was so quite and I told them I didn't know what to say. For the second session I barely spoke, again I told the counsellor I didn't know what to talk about.

I feel like I've said all I wanted to, so I am unsure what I should talk about.

Has anyone ever had this problem before and give me some guidance as to what I should talk about in these sessions so I can get the most from them and start to feel better about my self again?

looksee

The title counsellor makes it sound like they are going to give you loads of wise advice! In fact they mainly are there to help you figure out what is happening to you and maybe why. Maybe the counsellor felt you needed the silence to make you think...I don't know.

Give it a lot of thought, try and work out why you are not talking, try and decide whether there is something you are not saying that needs to be said. You are the one looking for help, the Counsellor isn't a mind reader, nor does he/she want to 'lead' you.

However it could be that you have not 'connected' with the counsellor. Maybe you need to try someone different, you can do that, there is no problem with you hunting around for someone that you feel you can open up to.

Good luck, don't give up, its not easy but keep at it.

amcm27

I had the exact same experience. I eventually plucked up the courage to go to counselling, but like you, just ended up sitting there in silence for most of it, with the counsellor just looking at me! I went back twice more, and then had enough. I too was under the impression that they would start a discussion and then I would be able to just 'chat' I suppose.

I was thinking that it was maybe a case of me not 'clicking' with that particular counsellor.I have since moved to a new area, so I'm going to try a new counsellor and hopefully that will work out better. It has also been suggested to me that in my first session I should say that I will work better with and respond better to more of a discussion type session?

Maybe if you tried a different person you would have a better result? Don't give up hope - there's somebody out there who will be able to help you in a way that will suit you!

LegacyUser

Hey OP,
Sorry i this doesn't help but I had a similar experience when i was younger.

Was having some problems with someone and my parents pushed me to go. I explained the problem to the person, as my parents at the time (like most people) seemed to think that they are there to help and offer advice.

Unfortunately that's not exactly true.

Their job is to listen. or a lot of people, simply talking out loud about their problems, is enough release to help them get through it. In some cases, the councellor can probe a little more about things you say to get you to explain your feelings about things a bit more.

But if you are going to one, just to tell them your problems and want them to e there with answers, unfortunately in most cases, that's not what they do.

An Bhanríon

Have never been in your situation. However, one or two things spring to mind reading your post:

Have you explained to the counsellor how you feel? Maybe a discussion about the counsellor's approach would be helpful, i.e. that he / she would explain how he / she approaches clients and his / her methods. Not all counsellors will have the same approach as they will have different training.

I figure that often the first person you go to for counselling will often not be the best person to help you, simply because you don't click. You may need to try a few people before you find somebody who suits you. I know, that's probably a difficult thing to do when you're feeling depressed and all you want is to find a way out!!

But certainly don't give up after two sessions. Even if you don't feel the sessions are getting you out of your depression I think they could still help in a roundabout way by making you more aware of how you react to things. That is sometimes the key to getting out of a depression and managing to make some changes in your life.

Best of luck!

LegacyUser

I can relate to that. I went to a counsellor and poured my heart out for a while. Then said I was ok and we had nothing more to say to each other. I've got some sort of in-built mechanism in my mind where I shut down my feelings, convince myself that everything's wonderful and I survive for a while until it all gets on top of me again. I liken it to looking into a garage which is really really untidy, then pulling the door down in front of it and saying I've a nice tidy house again.

The counsellor told me I had done this the following week and she had some sort of phrase for it. Something to do with either the power of negative thinking or a negative mind. I can't remember the exact phrase now, sorry. She was right and it was an eye opener for me.

It's hard to know whether it's the counsellor is wrong or you're wrong. What a counsellor does is gets you to talk about your situation and they try to have you look at things differently. They do give advice too but really, you have to be totally honest. You have to be totally open and perhaps look deeper into yourself for what the real issues are. They're not necessarily what you've gone to the counsellor with.

On the other hand, the counsellor just might not be the right person for you. Some are better than others - that goes without saying. I think you should try it for a while longer and if it doesn't work, switch to someone else.

JuliusCaesar

This page from the Irish Council for Psychotherapy gives some information about the different school of psychotherapy. Have a read and see if you can find one that might be better suited to you. You'll find more detail about any of them in google too. HTH.


And here's some boards psychology info on How to Find A Counsellor/Psychotherapist/Psychologist

LegacyUser

Go find someone else.

I was in the same situation but stuck it out for abotu 10 weeks til I nearly went crazy with frustration.

I am seeing someone else now and I'm back on track - it's a proper help to me challenging things I do and say and discussing lots of things.

I had really wanted to make a formal complaint about the other one as it really was just me talking and her just looking at me as.

There was no advice, no suggestions but instead she would fixate on an irrelevant point and say "why do you think that is?" ...... I would ask her how the process works and she would give me very vague answers.

I thought it was me who had the problem and so I stuck it out for ages which made me worse.

Go to your GP and talk to him/her about options and maybe try to seek a more professional approach and a different type of person to talk to .

Good luck.

LegacyUser

Hi OP,

I've been having counselling for the past 2 months and I often have the same problem. When I don't know what to say, what I do is talk about anything at all, such as weather, holidays, plans for the weekend, and before I know it I'm touching on the real issues, even if addressing them fully may take another while. I end up going into the real problems in slightly more detail each week. It's a drawn out process but it works for me - I'm not someone who finds it easy to open up to people. Some weeks I don't feel like I'm making any progress, and then there will be a week when something suddenly starts making a lot of sense. Good luck, and stick with it, it takes time to see progress but when you do it'll be all worth it.

Leonard Hofstadter

I think you have to be really open minded going in - and be prepared to say what you think about things.

It is a mistake to assume that a councillor will outline a solution for you - what a good one will do is make you come up with solutions to your problems.

A good one will also make you bring up problems in your life that you would have tried to ignore or 'bury under the carpet' because they happened a long time ago and you'll only realise it once you've said those kind of things.

It requires effort on both sides, if you decide before going in that certain topics are 'off limits' then I hate to say it, but you're not going to get the most out of it.

I've been to counselling before, and if I ever have problems again in my life I'll certainly go again. I found it to be an enormous help primarily because the counsellor made me find solutions to my own problems and because I was prepared to open my mind and talk about things that were getting me down.

Good luck OP:)!