Research over many decades has shown that counselling can be effective. It can help people to make really useful changes in their lives. Changes that have helped people to move out of unhappy situations that often they felt were hopeless. Changes that have brought about new learning about new ways of Being Themselves - changes that help to challenge often long held views about anxiety, self doubt and feeling down.

Below are some responses from clients who took part in research asking about their views of counselling and how they found it.  Here they explain what they gained from their counselling experience and how it worked for them. These are the clients' own words:

"The counselling allows you the space to talk and think and then you can take that away and use it in a positive, productive way."

"I just think the counsellor gives you the tools to question yourself, then come up with alternative answers."

"Just the talking, openly talking to her, going through the reason I had become the way I had become and what has moulded me now into this person, and exploring all of that, has really helped."

"She made me realise as well that it is ok to be certain things, you know it is ok to be angry, it is ok to feel hurt, it is ok to behave a certain way after certain situations."

"I think she enabled me to talk about myself. I think she made it ok for me to talk about myself, which was something I had never done."

"I feel like I have pieced it together and I can see what I have been, how I have got to where I am and how I can change that and what obviously I need to accept that maybe I didn’t want to accept before."

"It was a learning process, definitely, a learning process.  A learning about myself and someone enabling me to do that."

"I found that it sort of made me look at myself more, self exploration and really sort of work on things I need to change really and ways I can manage my life better"

Counselling can work for different people in different ways.  One client described how his counselling has changed what he does; previously he was struggling with motivation at home  but following his counselling he reports he can now tidy his house. For another client counselling has changed how she feels about herself.  Other clients state counselling  has enabled them to learn how to do things differently. Although clients report taking different things from their counselling, what they describe would seem to reflect a shift in how clients view themselves and their place in their world. They are moving from a state of  unhappiness at the start of therapy to a point at ending where there is a sense of being a worthwhile person. Certainly for the first client above there is a realisation for him that he deserves to spend time on himself and spend time looking after his environment so it is pleasing to him. For other clients, although they present their learning differently, there is still a shift in how they feel and how they relate to other people. Clients recognise they have learned through their counselling sessions that they are now more able to allow themselves  to be who they truly are instead of adapting to meet the expectations of others. There is a move away from old patterns of behaviour in response to others and a move toward doing things in a new way that better meets what they themselves need. Ultimately, counselling was felt to be a learning process that resulted in making helpful changes.

If this sounds like something that would be useful to you then come and try it. Pick up the phone, or send that email today.