Wanting More From Your Counselor

Counseling is a very interesting process. You come in spilling your guts to another person who is practically a stranger. You tell them things you've never told anyone else. You may have broken down in tears when you're upset, or maybe have turned to them when you're feeling like you're at your lowest point. And all this time, they've never judged you or shamed you...just provided the support and guidance you needed to get through these rough times.

Suddenly, you may find you are having feelings towards this person. You may want to become friends with them or even closer...maybe even have feelings of love. So what's the problem?

If your counselor is true to your therapy, they cannot reciprocate your feelings. It's understandable you would have such strong feelings for your counselor. You have put your trust in them and become vulnerable during some difficult times. For your counselor to share your feelings could have detrimental effects. They will not be able to maintain the objectivity, which you sought out in the first place. Counseling is a professional relationship which can sometimes feel very personal. However, it isn't personal. Do you pay your friends and family to talk to you? Probably not.

Your counselor is trained to deal with these issues. They can help you process your feelings in a positive way. However, if your feelings begin to overtake the therapy, your counselor may recommend (as a last resort) to transfer your therapy to another counselor, who can continue the work. Although this can feel like rejection, the counselor is really doing what is in your best interest. They want to see you succeed in life, and will not be able to help you achieve this if they are personally involved in your life.

Counseling through the Holidays

The holidays prove to be a stressful time, between dealing with family, buying gifts and trying to please everyone around you, you may feel overwhelmed and feel like you can't add one more commitment to your schedule. I can appreciate this as I also feel overwhelmed at times.

If you've been going to therapy for a while, you may want to feel like cutting therapy out of the schedule to have extra time or extra money for gifts. Consider carefully if this is the right move for you. I'm not automatically saying it's not, but weigh the pros and cons carefully:

Pros:

•Have more time to get things done
•Have more money to invest in gifts and other holiday necessities.

Cons:

•You have difficulty managing stress on your own.
•You allow all the holiday activities to overrun your calendar. Counseling is a guaranteed hour to focus on yourself.
•If your counseling recently took a positive turn, now may not be the best time to suspend sessions as you may lose motivation.
•If the holidays are a difficult time for you, suspending counseling to save a few dollars may not be best for your mental and physical health.

If you are deciding whether or not temporarily suspending sessions through the holidays is appropriate for you, speak with your therapist about it. Together, the 2 of you can look at the progress you've made to date and determine if taking a break for a few weeks would be in your best interest. Ultimately, this discussion could be the catalyst for a positive holiday season!

Why Weekly Sessions?

From time to time, I will be asked by new clients, "Why do I need to come in weekly?" There is no magical formula and treatment will vary client by client. This is what I have found in working with clients:

1) They are usually in crisis by the time they have made their first appointment.
2) They want to feel better about the problem as soon as possible.
3) They don't want to feel like they are going to be in therapy forever.

For these reasons, I usually encourage weekly sessions until:

1) The crisis has subsided.
2) They start to feel like they have a handle on the problem.

When sessions are initially bi-weekly, clients tend to start the sessions off, and can spend up to 1/2 the time, recounting what has happened since the last session. This only gives me, as the therapist, 1/2 the session to really work with the you. Weekly sessions provide a higher level of interaction, intervention and support. Clients receive more consistency, which in turn allows them to integrate what they learn in therapy and achieve their goals faster.

It's Not My Therapy, it's Your's!

I had the most interesting conversation with another person yesterday. They asked me if I ever contacted clients 6 months after they've ended therapy to see how they are doing and if the therapy was successful. I replied, "No. I don't. If I did, then this could be seen as intrusive to the client." My answer stumped them, but it got me thinking.

Clients often ask me, "How do you handle people's problems all day long?" The short answer is, I'm not. You don't want a therapist who makes your problems their problems. Then the person you're paying good money to has lost the objectivity you probably sought after in the first place. You want a therapist who can definitely provide empathy and support, but can simultaneously maintain an emotional distance from your problem, to best help you see past the problem and begin accessing resolution.

When a therapist gets too involved with the problem, the therapy can easily shift from the client's needs to the therapist's. This isn't what you're paying the therapist for. So, in responding to the original question about my outcomes and follow-up with past clients, I remain in the position that no news is good news. If the client ever needs to return, they can call me up and make an appointment.

Taking Care of Yourself

You take care of your spouse, your children, your pets, your friends, your parents and maybe even extended family, but who is taking care of you? If you're feeling stretched thin, it could be due to the fact you aren't putting in enough time for some self-care. This can result in increased stress, which in turn causes you to get sick, resentful and cause tension amongst those you love.

Think of it this way:

Imagine you are holding onto a basket of marbles. Each marble represents a moment of care to be bestowed onto another. For each act, you give out marbles to the individual who is receiving the benefit of that act. So you make time for your kids, those are marbles being given out. Same to your spouse as you take their dry-cleaning in. Same to your friends, who need a shoulder to cry on. You get the idea. After a while, if you aren't receiving marbles as fast as you give them away, what happens? You run out of marbles to give. This is known as "burnout" or some may say, "I've lost my marbles!"



It is important to make sure you are replenishing your own marbles constantly. Whether it be taking a hot bubble bath, long walks, a trip to the beach or time to read a book on the back porch, indulging in a little "me" time allows you to refill your basket and continue to be the giving person you want to be.

I Think I'm Done with Therapy

Have you been going to therapy for a while and wonder if you've gotten everything you can out of it? Are you wondering if you should just end it? Here's some points to consider if you are feeling "done" with therapy.

First, bring this up with your therapist. Usually clients and therapists have this interesting "sixth sense" about when therapy is over. Many times, I make plans to discuss the termination of therapy with a client, when they beat me to the punch, "Do you think I ready to end therapy?"

When either you or your therapist feel ending therapy (also more formally known as termination), your therapist will most likely want to review the goals you set out to achieve at the onset of therapy. Did you achieve them? Are there secondary goals that still need to be worked on? Are you satisfied with what you've accomplished? Your therapist will want to discuss these questions with you as well as look at any other goals you still might want to achieve.

Another point your therapist will want to cover with you is the skills you've acquired to overcome any future problems which might arise. The probability of another problem surfacing is likely and you may not have control over the problem; however, you do have control over how you tackle such problems using the tools you've learned through therapy.

Your therapist may also discuss your level of awareness in recognizing when you might need to return to therapy. Hopefully, you've made enough personal changes to be able to overcome problems and continue learning and growing from the process; however, you may find yourself needing outside assistance again. How will you know? What are the signs? By discussing these questions, you'll have a better grasp of the issue and seek help before you are in crisis.

Finally, the therapist will want to help you process the end of therapy. The therapist/client relationship is unique. You place a high level of trust into a stranger in order to overcome the crises, which brought you to therapy in the first place. Knowing this relationship is coming to an end can be difficult for some. Allowing this process to take place will provide you with the proper closure.

Whatever you do, allow yourself to experience this process. Canceling an appointment with no intention of returning only cheats you out of the opportunity to see how far you've come, what you can still work on independently and the resources available to you.

The Importance of Communication

Communication is so important for a relationship to endure. Couples who have difficulty with listening and responding in an open manner have a higher likelihood to have arguments, tension and misunderstandings. In order to minimize such rollercoasters, here are some tips to help you understand the importance of communication:

Keeping it all in

Have you ever felt so misunderstood by your partner, you decide not to speak your mind. I mean, what's the point? They aren't listening anyway and it'll just end up in an argument, right? So, let's look at what happens if you continually make this choice over and again:

You give in over and over. You stay quiet time and again. You keep bending over backwards in hopes that'll keep the peace. Soon, you start to feel angry all the time. You begin to nit-pick at your partner's faults. Those faults have always been there, but now they are really beginning to get under your skin. Suddenly, arguments over simple issues, like cleaning dishes and taking out the trash, become as large as World War III. Now, your conversations are continually strained. Tension has become a way of life in your home. You wake up one morning and decide you can't live in this relationship anymore. So what really happened?

You made a choice. The choice to stay quiet. The choice to not speak your mind. You began to bend over backwards so much you're on the verge of breaking. It appears you're angry with your partner, but really you're angry with yourself. You've kept quiet and you're angry to allow yourself to let this go for so long.

Ask yourself this question....was your choice really worth it?

What are you willing to do?

Are you in a relationship and feel like you've done "everything" to make it work? Are you still feeling frustrated? So what's going wrong?

Consider this...are you really doing everything to make the relationship work? What is the problem? What needs to be done to fix it? Are you really doing it? Here's some examples:

Conflicts with parenting styles: Are you going to parenting classes? They really help. Consistency is key and these classes give you the tools.
Feeling disconnected: Are you trying to connect? Or are you coming home every night and zoning out in front of the TV or going to separate rooms and spending the rest of the night apart.
Money problems: Do you just argue? Or have you set a budget? Gone to a financial planner? Seen a tax advisor? Accessing resources will help you deal with a business issue without the emotion.
Constant arguing over nothing: Are you taking the time to hear your partner? Or are you ready to defend yourself with every word coming out of their mouth? What we say is only 10% of what we mean. The other 90% is what we don't say. If you're trying to get the last word in edgewise, you're not hearing your partner.
Going to couples' counseling: Are you doing the work outside of the sessions? Or are you waiting until the next meeting to deal with the week's problems? Are you listening to the counselor and following up on their recommendations and suggestions? Or are you following your own plan? f you're not following the recommendations of your counselor, then think about this....are your own beliefs of how to solve the problem really working?

These are just examples to skim the surface. So ask yourself....are you really doing everything possible to get the relationship you want? Or are you expecting it to happen? Think about it....and be honest with yourself and your relationship.

Listen to your Heart?!?!?!

Have you ever had the experience of your head telling you one thing, but your heart is telling you the exact opposite? What is that all about? Why does it prevent us from taking steps to improve our relationships? The secret is uncovered!

So our partner says something that angers us. Logically, we know they didn't mean it. Emotionally, we can't let it go. In many situations, our feelings/emotions are triggered by an instantaneous thought process...like a knee-jerk reaction. What we don't realize is this irrational thought reflects something about ourselves we believe to be true. Examples may include, "I'm not good enough" or "I'm bad." We've internalized these types of thoughts and react whenever anything challenging these messages. The irony is most people aren't in tune with these thoughts, but we're in touch with our feelings: a heavy heart, a stomach in knots, or a painful chest.

So what do we do? We react to ease the painful feelings we're having; however, we're reacting to irrational feelings as a result of an irrational belief about ourselves. If we're able to take a step back when our partner triggers us, we can determine the root of our feelings and make better decisions as to how to react to the situation. Most of the time, you may realize the gut reaction may not always be the best reaction.