What is Counseling? | Newsletter 2
A fair question to ask and yet one that I found was not so easily answered. You could say that counseling is when you talk to a counselor in a room for 50 minutes about your emotions, and while that is true, I believe it’s bigger than that. Counseling is, among other things, a relationship and a space.
Your relationship with your counselor is key. If you read through any sort of counseling or therapy book, especially one that talks about the basics of counseling theories, you will read about what is called the “therapeutic alliance”. Edward Bordin defines this alliance as a “collaborative relationship between patient and therapist in the common fight to overcome the patient’s suffering and self-destructive behavior.” When you feel that you have someone in the room who is willing to join you in whatever struggle you are going through, you are tapping into the therapeutic alliance. A counselor gets to serve as a guide, someone to hold the light while you travel together through the dark, hard parts of your story. Having someone who is on your team and wants healing for you is a powerful resource in the counseling process.
Bessel Van Der Kolk writes, “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.” Van Der Kolk is talking about what it is like to sit with someone who you feel safe with, and doing so creates the space that counseling takes place in. Think about your closest friends or family, the people that you can share anything with. Why can you share anything with them? Because you feel safe, you are not having to constantly track if the person sitting across from you is going to reject you. If you are considering counseling of any sort, you must ask, “Do I feel safe with this person?” or “Does this person have my wellbeing in mind?”. Being safe means you are able to express yourself, your needs, and desires without fear of rejection or being left along. Counseling must contain a safe place that invites you to show up as you are.
As a counselor, my favorite part of this role is getting to meet people where they are at and create a space where they allow themselves to just be them. I know it is not always easy to trust someone right away, especially when you have been hurt by people, I get it. Counseling is not easy. Finding the right counselor for you is not easy. I do believe it is worth the effort. My hope for everyone is that they would have a space with another individual where they can come in and feel felt, a space where they can bring everything that is hard about life and be met with a level of empathy that says “I am not going to leave you alone in this”.
