commonquestions.html

What is the difference between 'Psychotherapy' and 'Counselling'? Many people see 'counsellors' as dealing with their clients on a more immediate, 'here and now', problem-solving level; whereas 'psychotherapists' are also trained to work at a 'deeper', more 'structural' level of the psyche. But basically, both psychotherapists and counsellors work to try to effect psychological and behavioural change. Am I 'nuts'/ 'a fruit cake'/'crazy' to be needing therapy? Many people have a deep-seated fear of being 'abnormal' or of having a 'mental illness'. Even when we have difficulty coping on our own, we crave reassurance that we are 'normal'. The truth is that 'normality' covers a wide spectrum of presentations. Statistically speaking, more than one in four of us will at some point in our lives suffer some form of 'mental illness'. So, in as much as one can regard a physical illness as 'normal', we can likewise claim that mental illness too - when it occurs - is 'normal'! What is 'Mental Illness'? There is a small minority of people who are genetically predisposed to mental disorders like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder or severe/ 'clinical' depression. These illnesses are medically contained through medication. For the vast majority of us, mental illness occurs as the cumulative effect of (perhaps) early relationship failures (which can leave us psychically and emotionally vulnerable), traumatic life experiences and stress. Certainly, inherited pre-dispositions to illness can be aggravated by stresses brought about by social and environmental factors. So how will therapy help me? Therapy gives us a chance to reflect on and reassess our lives, to 'talk out' our problems (it is still true that 'a problem shared is a problem halved', and we may be reluctant to 'burden' or distress our friends and relatives), and in the light of new insights, decide on what changes - if any - we may want to make. Does it matter what type of therapist I go to? There are so many types of therapy around, this is a confusing area for the uninitiated. Research shows convincingly that it is not the theoretical orientation of the therapist, so much as the warmth and the quality of the patient-therapist relationship that makes the biggest difference to patient and therapy outcome. So my advice would be to not get too 'hung up' about the kind of therapy: find a therapist you like and can personally relate with! How can I tell if I need psychotherapy? Helpful self-questions might be: 'Am I feeling tired, weepy, depressed, bad-tempered, apathetic, anxious or jittery? Am I 'obsessional' about things? Am I feeling demotivated, both at work and in my social life? Do I have trouble sleeping, eating (too much, or too little), caring for myself, and/or connecting with people? Do I feel ill, even though the doctors can't find anything wrong with me? Do I often imagine the worst-case scenario and stop myself from being with others, and/or doing what I would dearly love to do? Am I having problems with my relationships? Do I lack confidence in social and work situations?' If the answer is 'yes' to more than a few of the above questions, counselling or psychotherapy may indeed be helpful.

Commonly Asked Questions

`Commonly Asked Questions`