Why counselling?

I thought I’d break the cycle of blogs about self-awareness, and turn towards a question I was asked numerous times: why did I start doing this? Why counselling and not coaching? To be able to find the one thing that makes my heart skip a beat and that also makes me a living, took a while. I love my work as communications specialist, but I also want to contribute to people’s lives in a different way. A deeper way. Counselling is the best way for me to contribute and enrich people’s lives.

Which is which

What’s the difference between therapy, counselling a coaching?

It’s one of the questions I receive the most from my clients, friends, or people I meet in various situations. I figured that someone out there isn’t doing a great job at explaining the differences between psychotherapy, counselling and coaching.

Complex explanations aside, here’s my take on the three:

• Psychoterapy – focuses on chronic physical and emotional problems with particular focus on a person’s thought processes; it is also trying to connect how these thought processes might be influences by past events and what you can learn from them – this form of therapy is conducted by specialists who followed formal training in psychology or psychiatry
• Counselling – together with your counsellor, you look at problems that originated in your past and identify patterns; you then look at how the causes and patterns can be changed to make your present life a better one for yourself
• Coaching – together with the client, you look at how they can do things differently to benefit their future; you investigate the possibilities and strengths of your client and challenge them to push boundaries.

What it is and what it isn’t

Try to imagine a timeline and psychotherapy sitting all the way to the left in your past. Counselling sits right in the middle, with an eye in the past and one in the future. Coaching is at the very right, focusing on your future. This difference between the three can help you determine where you should focus.

Because psychotherapy and counselling are a bit more connected, I want to clarify a few aspects. The main similarities between the two are:

• They both focus on the development of a safe, healthy, strong and serious relationship between counsellor and individual
• Both forms of therapy can help people of any age group
• They both focus on understand the client’s feelings and behaviors and trying to improve the client’s life by focusing on the issues at hand.

For differences, I summed it up in a table because it’s easier to understand:

Counselling	Psychotherapy
Focus on present problems and situations	Focused on chronic or recurring problems
Focus on specific situations and patterns	Big picture-oriented – trying to identify main patterns in behaviour or thinking process
Short term therapy (a maximum of 6 months is usual)	Long term therapy be it continuous or on and off throughout many years
Focus on actions and behaviours	Focus on feeling and experience
Talk therapy	It is a form of talk therapy, but it can also include tests, cognitive behavioural therapy, etc.
Focus on offering guidance and support so that clients can find their own solutions to their own problems	Focus is on in-depth, internal thoughts and feelings which can determine behavioural patterns

My choice

Having said all of this, my clients also ask me why did I choose to do this given that I already have a career as a communications specialist. Well, let me ask you this: is there anything in your life that simply fills you up with joy? It could be the simplest thing like watching the sunset or taking care of your pet.

For me, the answer is so easy: counselling is the best way for me to contribute and enrich people’s lives. I simply love it when clients come back to me smiling ear to ear and sharing with me what they’ve achieved. I enjoy listening to people, but I also enjoy asking them the right questions that would force them to think for themselves. Oh and one more thing: counselling can take place anywhere, anytime and with anyone. I can meet my clients online, at their home, for a coffee, for lunch, or simply for a walk. It’s one of the best aspects of this work!

I’m an idealist at heart. I’m one of those people who knows that we all have a big pile of good inside. And I also know that for the ones that turn out bad, it’s not their fault. Parents, grandparents, grand-grandparents before us fucked us over unwillingly. Life happened to them, they grew up and lived in survival mode. They didn’t receive love, so how could they give it? Generational trauma is as real as it can get. And I talk about it throughout some of the older blogs. But that’s why people like me walk this Earth. To give that love that was never received.

Seeing people succeed in their life because of a simple conversation they had with me has got to be the best kind of high one can get. If you also think that counselling is something that you need right now, then feel free to reach out. There’s nothing else that makes me happier than when someone takes the decision to put themselves first and invest in their well being.