Mental Health Awareness - Counseling
To continue with Mental Health Awareness Month, I could not let this series go by without talking about the greatest mental health tool… Counseling.
Having benefited from therapy personally and witnessed client’s benefit from therapy, I cannot recommend counseling enough.
Let’s talk about how counseling works. In an undergraduate psychology class, I was assigned to read a journal article. Journal articles are typically difficult to read and so dry. I do my best to skim what I can and jump to the results and conclusion portion of the article. One article in particular secured my trajectory to become a counselor. An article by Wampold and Budge (2012) discussed why and how therapy works. Up to this point, I knew the benefits of therapy and that it had been changed my life, but two years into a psychology degree and no one had mapped out the why!
Here’s the breakdown of why counseling works:
Therapeutic Relationship
Expectations
Healthy Actions
The therapeutic relationship will only work if there is trust between the client and their counselor. Oftentimes this trust is determined by the client instantly. This creates safety and ultimately helps regulate the client’s nervous system. This regulation allows for healing and deeper insight. The safety found in the therapeutic relationship can then be mirrored outside of sessions in the client’s personal relationships. The counselor provides a space for attachment and belonging, which is essential for survival.
Expectations within the process of therapy also account for the change clients receive in counseling. This starts before the first session. Clients start with concerns and struggles with the hope that therapy will provide them relief. The counselor’s role in this is to build on that hope by providing goals and treatment that align with the client’s needs. This is also tied to a placebo affect. Essentially, if you believe therapy will benefit you, it will! (This is also true for mental health medications).
The last key indicator of why counseling is effective is the change that leads to healthier actions. Ultimately, therapy will lead to the client making positive changes in their life and shifting from actions that were hurting their mental health. This is going to look different for everyone. This can manifest as creating and maintaining social supports, reducing stress, processing suppressed emotions, increasing physical activity, etc.
If you take anything away from this post, it’s that the relationship between a counselor and a client is what is the most important factor in the benefit of counseling. There are many factors at play. At the end of the day, counseling is a proven method to increase better mental health outcomes. If you have any questions about this or would like to set up a free consultation, I’d be happy to call and talk through how counseling could benefit your current mental health concerns.
Happy Friday,
Rachael
References:
Bruce E. Wampold, & Stephanie L. Budge. (2012). The 2011 Leona Tyler Award Address: The relationship—and its relationship to the common and specific factors of psychotherapy. The Counseling Psychologist, 40(4), 601–623. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000011432709