“Once you start making the effort to ‘wake yourself up’—that is, be more mindful in your activities—you suddenly start appreciating life a lot more.”
Introduction
Psychology is the study of the human mind, its attitude, its functions and emotional behaviour. It helps us to understand a person’s behaviour in a specific situation. It enables us to know the thought process and perspective of another person.
Every person uses psychology to understand the other person’s mindset and accordingly behave with them in their day-to-day lives. That is why we deal differently with different people. For example, when speaking to a crying child we need to be calm and composed while talking to an angry colleague, we need to be polite but firm.
Our understanding of the person’s mindset decides how we speak to them in an appropriate way. Therefore psychology is a part of our everyday lives whether we study it or not.
Counselling
Human beings are full of emotions. We react differently in different situations which in turn affects mental health, behaviour and attitude. Our behaviours are cumulative results of our past experiences, relationships and mindset.
Sometimes some of our emotions or thoughts not only affect our mental health but also our relationship with others. Counselling is talking about your behavioural issues with a trained professional in a safe and comfortable environment and learning to manage or control the disturbing issue.
A Counsellor is a qualified psychology expert who helps you talk about your mental health issues and find appropriate solutions to overcome or manage them.
Counselling can also be referred to as talk therapy where two or more individual discusses their emotional issue, learn to understand their underlying cause and reach a suitable solution.
Counselling is usually done on one- a to-one basis but there are cases when the counsellor discusses things with a group, who are facing a similar problem. For example Substance Abuse, Chronic Illness, Grief, Stress etc. In such cases, it is referred to as Group counselling which sometime may have even two counsellors or therapists talking to four or more patients.
Depending on the mode, Counselling can be done through these three modes:
One-on-One Session: These are scheduled sessions of approximately an hour between the counsellor and the client in a clinic.
Online Sessions: With the pandemic restricting us to our homes, these sessions have become popular. They are done online through Zoom, google meet or even whats app. They have scheduled sessions too, the only difference being that they are done from the comfort of your home.
Even the therapist or the counsellor does not need to be at the clinic. He can do online sessions from his home or anywhere else.
Telephonic Sessions: They are sessions between the therapist or counsellor over the phone on a fixed schedule.
Types of Counselling
There are different types of counselling depending on the problem and also on the type of techniques or tools being used. Here are a few common types of Counselling we hear in our daily lives:
Child Counselling: This branch of counselling deals with mental health, growth & development of a Child’s Behaviour, learning abilities and emotional behaviour.
A Child Psychologist or child counsellor is an expert specially trained to handle a child’s mental being and growth. And that is not all. Different types of Child Psychologists treat children in different age groups.
Child counselling is an effective way to understand the disturbing behaviour of a child. It also enables the teachers & parents to know if their child is suffering from some learning disability and find suitable solutions to it.
Anger Management Counselling: Every human being faces a lot of emotions like happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, hate, disgust, disappointment and anger. All of them are important in experiencing life in full. But excess of any of it can be harmful to a person and the people around him.
When a person faces frequent phases of intense waves of anger it affects his mental health and his relationship with others, so it becomes necessary to go through Anger Management Counselling. Counselling with an expert helps the client identify his triggers and manage them in a controlled manner.
Here are the following steps that a Counsellor or a therapist follows to treat Anger outbursts:
Identify Triggers: The counsellor helps the client to identify the causes of anger outbursts in person which may be his past experiences or current relations with his loved ones.
Handle Outburst: The Counsellor enables the person to better handle his anger and respond to triggers.
Change in Behaviour: Counselling helps in resolving the past issue or any other reason behind the anger and helps you change your behavioural patterns during situations which lead to outbursts.
This type of Counselling is essential as an excess of anger can drain your energy and affect your overall mental well-being.
Relationship Counselling: This type of Counselling gives the two partners in a relationship the chance and space to discuss the problem they are facing in the relationship and find suitable solutions to it. This type of Counselling is also referred to as Couples Counselling.
Couples go for Therapy or Counselling for various reasons. Some of them are:
- Some Couples go for Counselling to resolve the constant issues that they are facing in the relationship. It is not necessary that therapy or Counselling should be taken only if both are facing a problem. Even if either of them is facing any problem, they can seek the help of an expert. These problems may be related to trust issues, loyalty, and commitment.
- Some couples go to therapy to strengthen their relations and understand each other’s behaviours in a better way. They learn about their expectation from the relationship as well as from each other.
- Some couples go to Counselling to better understand the importance of the relationship, and decide if they want to take their relationship to another level and get married.
- Some couples also for counselling because they feel stuck and are still continuing with their partner because they are unable to move out due to some emotional or behavioural needs.
Couples Counselling is done depending on why the couple is seeking therapy or counselling in the first place. There are different tools and techniques the Counsellor uses to sort the problems being faced by the two partners.
Conclusion
Counselling is a talk therapy which enables the person going through any emotional or behavioural problem to find its cause and reach an appropriate solution.
For a long time, people have been believing in getting advice from their family and friends in times of difficult situations. All of them provide a solution based on their perspective, mindset, and experience.
However even human being is different, and so are their experiences and ways to handle difficult situations & intense emotions. Therefore talking with a professional expert helps the person to objectively understand the problem and deal with it according to his thought process and ability.
Be it Trauma, Work-related stress, Anxiety, Child developmental issues, Anger management or Relationship issues, Counselling can help you reach your solutions.
Toronto Psychological Service provides expert Counselling Services as well as Therapies from well-qualified experts who can help you find suitable solutions for your problems. Your mental health is as important as your physical well-being. Don’t suffer alone. Seek the help of Experts.
