In 10 years of my professional practice as a psychotherapist I have heard this statement from many of my clients after they have been in therapy for a while. That they wished that they were aware of such a support available and hadn’t hesitated to seek support for themselves earlier. Sadly, there is still a lot misconceptions and myths around counselling and therapy. Though I have seen progress in last 10 years it still pains me to see that there is still a lot of hesitation around seeking support from counselling or therapy.

In this video I would attempt to debunk certain myths and misconceptions regarding counselling or therapy. Here is the verbatim of this video in this article. You may see me use these two terms counselling and psychotherapy interchangeably, But there are some differences and I will make a video about it later. but in the current context these myths that I am going to debunk are equally applicable to both.  

Myth number 1 : Only weak people seek counselling

That can be nothing farther from the truth in this regard. Most of the clients that I work with are healthy, intelligent, smart, strong, happy and pretty successful In most part of their lives. Seeking help and support does not mean that you are weak. As a matter of fact it takes a lot of strength and courage to ask for help when you actually need it.

Myth number 2 : If you are in counselling it means something is wrong with you or you should have a serious mental health issue.

Not really.  Mental health issues like depression and anxiety or any significant psychological disorders may need treatment and therapy can benefit them. And mental health issues are as common and normal as physical health issues. Having said that counselling and therapy can benefit everyone. People seek counselling for dealing with their stress, relationship issues or improvement, parenting challenges, work life balance, grief and so on. 

Myth 3 : The counsellor will solve my problems. The Counsellor will give me solutions and advise me as to what I should do.

The Counsellor neither offers instant solutions nor gets into doling out advices. Counselling is a collaborative process where you and your counsellor would work together as a team. Though the counsellor brings onto the table their understanding of psychology, human behaviour, methodologies, frameworks etc, at the end of the day you are the expert in your life.

We believe that each person has the resources and the capacity to address their own challenges. The counsellor will facilitate the process for you to understand yourself better understand your situation better, to figure out what are the resources that you need, knowledge and skills that you need to acquire and help you in the process of acquiring them so that you are able to move from where you were to where you want to be.

Myth 4 : My therapist would be all sorted and would have no problems in their life

Your therapist is a human being too, and the human condition makes us all vulnerable to challenges in life. Yes your therapist would have done adequate personal work and would be in on going personal therapy themselves to deal with their challenges in a more effective manner. But that does not make them immune to problems or challenges.

It is very common for therapists themselves to have undergone struggles and adverse situations in their personal life. And this can enable them to be more compassionate, understanding, warm and empathetic towards clients. So your therapist may still be facing problems in their life but they actively work on it and on themselves on an ongoing basis.

Myth 5 : The therapist would change me and make me do things that I don’t want to

Nothing really happens in therapy without your consent. You are never asked to do anything in the therapy process that your unwilling to or uncomfortable with. Sometimes the therapist might suggest a process or activity or topic for discussion but you do have the power and agency to accept or say no to it.

It is possible that the changes that you seek can have an impact on your environment or people around you.  They may be surprised or react differently. The therapeutic relationship itself could be a positive influence on you but is never used to manipulate or get you to do anything without your consent.

Myth 6 : Let me talk about couple counselling. Couples think they need to come to therapy only when they are about break up or about to get a divorce.

It really saddens me to see that some couples come in to therapy when they have already filed for divorce or about to. But I’ve also seen couples move forward from there and rebuild their relationship when they are able to put their heart and mind into it.

You can seek support from couple therapy when you feel that relationship is in a rut or when you find that conflicts are escalating between the two of you or you are not feeling emotionally connected with each other, Or it is that you want to enhance your relationship and make it stronger and more fulfilling.

Myth 7 : In couple counselling the counsellor / therapist will fix my partner

In couple counselling the therapies actually in does not take sides between the two partners. The therapist is neutral and unbiased and facilitate the process for both to listen and understand each other, does not take a prescriptive view in terms of how relationship should be and would invite both of you to look in words to say how each one of you contributes to the issues at hand.

The therapist doesn’t fix either of you. But facilitates you both to resolve and heal the wounds in your relationship if any, and to make changes in your own self to enhance the relationship.

The post 7 Myths around Counselling and Therapy Debunked first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.

You have been in therapy for a while and if you feel stuck and you not progressing for quite some time, what can you do about it? Therapy/counselling is a process and it takes time, effort and involvement. So don’t jump to this conclusion very quickly without going through the process.

1. Talk to your therapist about how you feel about therapy.

Talk to your therapist and bring it up.  Express how you feel about therapy and your therapist, even if you think it is not positive, there is value in expressing how you feel and processing it with your therapist. That itself could be a therapeutic process and might help you move forward.

You can discuss what works and what doesn’t for you, where you feel stuck and what do want from the therapy process.  Your therapist will take your concerns seriously without becoming defensive and perhaps could change their approach / pace and would openly discuss with you and collaborate to address your concerns.

2. Reflect on what is your level of involvement in the therapy process.

Therapy is an involved process.  It is a purposeful relationship that you and your therapist are voluntarily involved in, towards a defined outcome. Are you only discussing on and on about your problems? Therapy is a space where you seek change. Your therapist cannot make you change, its an internal process which can only be facilitated for you, with your consent.

It’s a good practice to reflect on, “What am I here for?  What am I willing to do to reach my defined purpose? What feelings emerge for me, when I think of change or moving forward?” This could be starting from doing the activity/homework that you agreed upon or reflection/introspection process or journaling and so on. Your therapist may gently explore with you if there are any payoffs (hidden benefits) for remaining where you are.

There might be unconscious ties to your current situation, behaviour, relationships which could be painful but familiar to you from your own past history.  Familiarity could be perceived unconsciously as safety and a change be seen as dangerous unknown territory. 

3. Are you able to be open and honest with your therapist?

How open and honest are you with your therapist? Do you feel safe and comfortable to talk to your therapist about anything about yourself or your experiences? Have you hidden or avoided discussing any important incidents or experiences which come up for you? Clients can experience guilt, shame in disclosing about certain aspects of their lives or about their childhood or their parents/loved ones.

These could have relevance to the current issue that you are facing. Is there something that is making you feel hesitant to share important details with your therapist?

Therapy is a collaborative process, and without your cooperation and full involvement, the therapist cannot facilitate the change that you are looking for.

4. If you have a clinical condition, you could consider medication.

If you are depressed or anxious and once a week therapy is not showing progress, you perhaps may need a different form of therapy or a clinical intervention or see a medical practitioner.  Your therapist could possibly recommend you to see a qualified psychiatrist or provide a referral too.  If needed you can also request for / your therapist also could recommend a change in the frequency of your therapy sessions.

If you meet with a psychiatrist and are prescribed medications, it is your responsibility to stay on medication be in regular contact with your psychiatrist as advised. Medication in conjunction with therapy could help you progress forward.

5. You can also look for another therapist. 

If still things don’t work you can talk to your therapist and close the process and find yourself a new therapist. Sometimes there could be specific personality aspects between the client and therapist that may not allow for a good therapeutic alliance to develop. Your therapist may be able to provide you an appropriate referral suitable for you. Do not drop off from therapy abruptly without discussing about it with your therapist.  I contract with my clients to have a discussion with me if they choose to terminate therapy before the agreed upon goals are met or for any other reasons whatsoever.

Before arriving at that decision of looking for a new therapist, do reflect on how many therapists have you changed till now.  If the answer is many, then that is an important aspect to reflect and work through. Another therapist in a long list of therapists will not help unless this is addressed.

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. As a trained therapist, she provides professional and confidential counselling services including Individual counselling and Couples counselling / Marriage counselling.

Currently with the COVID-19 situation, all counselling services are offered online over video calls. Reach us at +91 9632146316 or write to us at counselor@innerdawn.in.

The post 5 things to do if you think therapy is not working for you first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.

Therapy is a purposeful process that is geared towards the growth of the client.  Therapeutic Relationship is a warm, caring and trust based bond between the client and therapist is critical. How do you feel about therapy, and your therapist are some of the key the components of the therapeutic process.

Many a times you might talk about your feelings in the therapy process about things that happens in your own life and circumstances. The Therapist would actively listen to you with empathy and ask appropriate questions or provide relevant information or invite a reflection as needed.

There might also be times when you as the client might have felt angry or upset with your therapist. This could be about what therapist said / did or didn’t say or didn’t do.  Sometimes you might experience such feelings without any apparent reasons as well. There also might be times when you may have felt frustrated with the way the therapy process is proceeding.  What do you do with these feelings? 

It is important that you talk to your therapist about these feelings that might arise now and then about the therapist or the process itself as part of the therapy process.

I usually contract with my clients that even if they feel any unpleasant or uncomfortable feelings, towards me or the process, they would come back and talk to me, share with me, and to process those feelings in the therapy session.

It is common and normal that some of the issues that you experience in your life can, at some point of time, manifest in the therapy setting with your therapist.  When you are able to talk about it with your therapist, you might get a new understanding of where it is coming from, make new meaning out of it and it is also possible to have a new experience in the therapeutic relationship which could lead to healing or growth.

Meghana (Client name changed for confidentiality) came into therapy with a complaint that she is not able to maintain good relationships both in her work space and personal life. She believed that she is taken for granted by everyone around her and at some point of time when she is unable to take it anymore she completely breaks away by quitting.

After a period of time in therapy, though she was making progress in certain areas, she also complained of having difficulty sleeping, and there were no other apparent reasons for this discomfort.  When I explored our relationship in a session, and encouraged her to talk about how she felt about me the therapist and the process, she expressed her anger towards me, regarding certain statements that I had made, which she had kept bottled up within her. 

I listened to her completely, acknowledged her emotions, and we processed this new experience of expressing even difficult emotions in a relationship.  Her pattern of keeping her emotions bottled up till the day it bursts open was interrupted in this relationship, giving her a new experience of expressing her anger and frustration and still being accepted and acknowledged.

On exploring further we found that she would bottle up her emotions and anger towards mother during her childhood over a period of time and would burst out at some point of time in tears or in a tantrum for which she was reprimanded which made her bottle up even more.  It is this childhood experience which was manifesting in different contexts in her life and in her relationship with the therapist as well. The new experience gave her the confidence and awareness of a choice that she does have an option of expressing herself in better and healthier ways and that her relationships would survive.

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist and Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. As a trained therapist, she provides professional and confidential – face to face Counselling in Bangalore including Individual counselling and Couples counselling / Marriage counselling in Bangalore and Online Counselling over video calls for others residing outside Bangalore and abroad.

Reach us at +91 9632146316 or write to us at counselor@innerdawn.in.

The post How do you feel about therapy and your therapist? Do you discuss that with your therapist? first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.

How does counselling really work? How are clients able to make significant and long lasting changes in their lives?

This is a common question that I am usually faced with when a person calls up to enquire regarding counselling and psychotherapy services that I provide. They ask me, will you solve my problem or will you give solutions to my problem? And when I tell them – No, I do not claim to solve my clients problems, but I facilitate the process through which my clients are enabled to seek the kind of solutions that work for them. They would ask – How does it work, if you won’t give me the solutions, and I don’t know the solution to my problem.

The short answer to that question is that, as a counsellor and therapist, the fundamental premise is that the solutions to your problems, whether dealing with it or coping with it lies within you.  Sometimes you might have the resources for the same within but are unable to access it, because of some roadblocks. And sometimes you might have to develop those resources and seek some of the resources from around you.  In the space of a warm, genuine, and non-judgemental therapeutic relationship, the client is enabled to seek and develop these resources and acquire the skills needed. The therapist brings in their understanding of psychology, human behavior, tools, methodologies etc, but the effort needs to come from the client.

Let me go a bit deeper and answer this question in greater detail.  For this I need to talk about two very important aspects of our brain, which are neurogenesis and neuroplasticity.

Neurogenesis is the process by which new neurons are formed in our brain. Though this process is the most active during the embryonic development, it also can create new neurons in specific areas of our brain throughout our life.

Neuroplasticity is the capability of our brain to change.  We can develop new neural networks throughout our life span. Our brain cells ie, neurons, communicate with each other, through specific connections creating pathways.   These pathways, determine our thought process, emotional responses, behaviour etc. They lead us to access old memories, learnings and experiences, provide us the heuristics to quickly make sense and meaning out of a situation, take decisions and so on.

When a new learning takes place, development of new neural connections/networks and in turn new pathways are made in our brains.

Let me explain with a case: Rajesh (Fictional client) came into individual counselling with certain problems in his marriage.  He was unable to express his love and affection to his partner, though he felt those emotions within himself.  His strong conditioning came from his childhood, where his parents would not express love and affection to each other or to the children openly.  Expressing emotions openly was not encouraged in the family. He was unable to receive overt love and affection, which made him very uncomfortable, as well as to show and give overt love and affection. He was also criticized for his inability to show love by his partner, and he felt inadequate in the relationship.

In the counselling process, he experienced genuine warmth and unconditional acceptance of who he was as a person, without any criticism or disapproval or approval. This gave him strength to explore his childhood experiences to understand the messages that he was given as a child, both explicitly and implicitly, that had defined his understanding about relationships and his behaviour in relationships as he grew up. With this understanding, he realised that he doesn’t have to be stuck with the childhood messages that he had learnt in this regard which were damaging his current relationship. He learns that he has a choice to be the adult that he wants to be, who can make real world choices. 

He is invited and motivated to reflect on his own thoughts, emotions and behavior, introspect on his strengths and weakness and over all his self-awareness improves and self esteem is bolstered.

When there is a focus on the positives and goals in the counselling process it radically interrupts the client’s established negative thinking patterns or unwanted behaviors. When new information is provided through psychoeducation, when new skills are developed, learning happens through formation of new neural networks and connections.  And when the learning is practiced in a safe environment, within the context of the therapeutic relationship, the new neural pathway becomes more established. He experienced unconditional positive regard in the counselling process. He experienced empathy in the process and his feelings and difficulties were validated, and his goals were highlighted. His feelings of inadequacy reduced and his motivation to make his relationship better enhanced.

His new experiences, new learning regarding  relationships, with better understanding of his behaviour and its origins, focus on practicing new desired behaviours and skills etc were enabled by development of new neural pathways, and these were reinforced by consistent practice of the behaviour. 

Rajesh was able to learn to accept positive strokes and appreciation, in the counselling process, and also learnt to provide appreciation to others. The process enabled him to receive as well as provide love and affection to his loved ones over time. Relationships improved dramatically.

In this case study, person centered counselling and Cognitive behavior therapy were the approaches used.  May other approaches and modalities could be applied. When the newly developed network-pathway is used repeatedly, they get strong and the corresponding older pathways are discarded by our brain. New advances in brain research provide the biological explanation on how counselling and therapy can create a lasting change for clients.

About the Author:

Kala Balasubramanian is a certified Counselling Psychologist/Psychotherapist with a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy, Diplomas in Counselling and has further certifications specializing in couple/marriage/relationship counselling and family counselling. As a professional counsellor she provides a supportive, understanding, professional and confidential environment to work with clients – Individuals and Couples explore their emotions, help them understand and manage their challenges, relationships and stress better.

The post How does counselling really work? first appeared on Inner Dawn Counselling.