The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) recognises the importance of the mental, psychological, and emotional health of persons living with disabilities.
This is why different therapeutic supports have NDIS funding. Among these NDIS therapeutic supports is counselling.
Counselling is a conversational type of therapy wherein a trained therapist listens to your emotional issues and helps you find ways to deal with them. It may be normal to be anxious about attending a counselling session at first because you will be talking to a stranger who knows nothing about you.
But over time, counselling sessions can help you achieve different goals.
Attending a counselling session soon? Read on to find some tips on what you should do and what you shouldn’t do during a counselling session.
The Do’s
1. Learn to trust your therapist. Even if this might be the first time that you will be talking to your therapist, it is important that every counselling session has trust and rapport in its foundation.
Having these two in your relationship with your therapist will allow you to confide in him or her easily and address your concerns smoothly.
2. Be prepared to open up and get emotional. Avoid being vague and speak up about anything that has been troubling you. Your therapist also wants you to be comfortable enough to express your feelings even if it entails crying or showing bursts of anger.
3. Reflect on your thoughts and behaviour. An effective therapy session involves you looking inward and self-assessing on how you’ve been reacting or handling different issues.
4. End each session with a plan. For the first counselling session, you and your therapist will most likely be touching a bit on what your goals are and what therapeutic management will be done. At each session though, ask your therapist if you have any homework or new coping mechanisms to try.
Don’t forget to also ask when the next session will be to check if there would be no conflict in your schedule.
5. Attend more than one session. Majority of the time of your first session will be spent on getting your background information and telling your therapist the reason why you are there.
It won’t usually be enough to have one session to address your issues so give it a few more tries and then see if counselling can really help you with your goals.
The Don’ts
1. Feel embarrassed about your issues. Your therapist will never judge you, your feelings, or the issues that you are dealing with.
2. Ask questions about your therapist. Therapy sessions should only be focused on you and you getting better. Asking personal questions about your therapist destroys the professional boundary and will not be advantageous in addressing your issues.
3. Lie. There is no point in lying to your therapist. It is you who will have lost the opportunity to get the probable benefits of the therapy session.
4. Share big issues or revelations at the last minute. Feel free to talk about many issues in a session. However, try to prioritise sharing big issues at the beginning of the session and not when the session is about to end.
This gives more time to discuss them during that session and avoids postponement of the discussion to the next session, destroying momentum.
Stick with a therapist you don’t feel comfortable with. To achieve effective therapy, you should feel comfortable with your therapist. If after a few sessions and you do not feel any connection with him or her, it would be probably best to try a new therapist.
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You can expect a compassionate, confidential, and encouraging atmosphere during your counselling sessions.
Aside from this Melbourne counselling service, Avocadocare also provides core support, capability building support, support coordination, and psychosocial recovery support.
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