5 Ways that Counselors Can Help You

Counseling is a form of collaborative processing that is grounded in the relationship that develops between you and your counselor. Through dialogue, counseling provides a supportive platform in which you can talk openly with a professional who is neutral and objective, yet caring and collaborative, without fear of judgment.

How can counselors help you make progress?

The greatest tool counselors, therapists, and psychologists have is their ability to seek understanding of your thoughts and emotions, honed through years of specialized education, training, and experience. With this skill, a counselor can help you identify patterns in your words, thoughts and behaviors and collaboratively find ways with you to overcome barriers and become the best version of yourself. 

Finding positivity in you and in life 

Counselors who incorporate cognitive restructuring and related techniques can assist you in finding overly negative patterns in your thinking style and help you  identify more accurate and productive thoughts and ways of seeing the world. Although positivity is not forced, the seemingly negative world around us is questioned and balanced against reality; the positive strengths you possess are also further explored and reinforced, solidifying your character and ability to confront the challenges of life with confidence and resilience. Although life may be inherently challenging, learning to balance our positive and negative outlook on life can help lay the foundation of a more positive perspective to life’s challenges, through which we can turn challenges into opportunities for growth. 

Finding the strength to manage negativity

There can be moments when you feel strong negative emotions that may lead to negative behaviors as a response to stress, such as self harm, substance use, binge eating, excessive worrying and catastrophizing. Counselors can help you to reduce such negative and unwanted behaviors by helping you to better control your strong emotions, instead of allowing your emotions to control you. A counselor may guide you to find a better way to channel your negative thoughts and behaviors such as via meditation or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to make you stronger against negativity.

Reducing physical illness that may be a result of stress and anxiety 

Sometimes, you may experience physical illnesses due to feeling stress or anxiety. Receiving counseling can help you to reduce physical illnesses caused by psychological reasons by being trained from your counselor on simply how to breathe better or sleep better via tested methods and techniques. Additionally, your counselor can help identify the exact stressors for you to be able to face the stressors with more courage through exposure therapy.

Increasing communication and problem solving skills 

Counselors are trained not just to passively listen, but also actively assist in increasing communication and problem solving skills. For example, receiving counseling can help you practice communicating through role plays with your counselor. Also, problem solving can be done through psychotherapy, which is a type of a dialogic therapy that is interactive and collaborative with the client as a joint effort for problem solving.

Creating realistic goals

As trained professionals, counselors can assist you in outlining plans that are realistic to carry out to counter stressors. For example, if a person is stressed with being a harsh self-critic, counselors can provide exercise plans, such as finding things to be grateful for and listening to uplifting music to feel more positive about themselves.

If these points sound appealing to you, you may want to consider having a counseling session.

Have a look at our other blog posts and pages for more useful tips and mental health advice.