Does councilling work?

Yeah, but usually we pick who we trust if at all. With a shrink it is a "set-up" situation

But you are still in control. If you don't trust that person you can still say no and go on till you find someone you do trust.

Tash

I am a lisenced couneselor (behavior counselor, specifically) and I have to tell you, it only works if the person being counseled wants to change. And, even then, it's not easy. I don't like counseling, that's why I went into psychometry instead. When you get to the basics, you find that very few things effect real change:

1. Divine Intervention (leave room for the things unexplained).
2. Trauma.
3. Desire and HARD work.

People typically do not change for the better. If there is a lasting change for the better, it's not due to a counselor. A counselor is just a person who can help guide the person to change themselves. Unfortunately, only the bad changes seem to be everlasting.

Becky

Geeze Becky - that's a depressing viewpoint. I have read that many psycologists and psychiatrists have stopped working with adults and started working with children because getting children to change their behavior is easier than getting adults to change. It sounds like a field that could burn one out after a while.

Kathleen

now there is a figment of hope


I have to agree though. A counselor won't be able to help at all if the person needing help isn't ready/willing.

I have a friend whose been through soooo many sessions with soooo many different counselors. It doesn't do shit - why? Cause he won't face his issues and he isn't willing to put the effort in. Instead he calls me. In the beginning I was glad, since, in a way, I supposedly am part of his "problems".

And like Jag, I have considered myself always his friend and I wanted to be there for him (again partly because I blame myself for some of his problems). However, now, I just cannot deal with it anymore. I have my own issues and it is counterproductive for me to be pulled in and blamed for everything. Worst is to have the tremendous burden of me being the only one he calls on, in the dead of the night, when he is ready to get the heck out of here. And nothing I say seems to faze him. Nothing I say seems to get through to him. I don't want to be the last one he talks to. I don't want to be the one explaining his son why whatever I said didn't mean Jack. And I don't want to get the call again that he went through with it.

So, yeah, I wish he'd go to another counselor and I wouldn't take it personal.

Hi all,

I think we hesitate to trust people because we're afraid of some sort of betrayal. But a counselor has the duty not to betray his patients. Counselors have a real professional conscience, and actually went through therapy themselves in order to be able to do their job, and won't even think of any kind of betrayal. When you might feel betrayed by your best friend without him even having a clue that he has or of what he could have done wrong.

Counselors are outside of our lives and problems. They can pull a very wide range of strings that will help us find our own way by ourselves, as it has been said before. I don't think their goal is to make us change, but to understand ourselves and live with ourselves and others, help us figure out the key elements to an as well balanced life as possible.

So Jag, if your friend goes there, it's really not against you. It's an extra help for him that NO ONE in his friends and family can bring. In such situations, we need all the help we can get. But he still needs you beside him because no counselor will give him what you can. Support him and his family in this.

All the best,

Ponrauil

PS: Just to bring up something funny, there's a french comedian that said : " When I was a kid, I used to pee in my bed during the night and I was ashamed. I went to see a shrink. I still pee at night, but now I'm proud!" Just trying to cheer this thread up a little...

thanks for the support every1 and yr viewpoints too...alot of ppl seem for the idea of councilling...im still not, mostly cos im ina situation where im so attached....i dunno how i would be if i was from the outside...i guess all i can do is be there for him, and support him wotever his wishes are.