Counselling

The English term “counselling” translates literally as “advice giving”. Its actual meaning, however, does not refer to giving direct advice, but rather to a particular kind of psychological support that helps a person regain their lost balance, find a way out of a difficult situation, or discover new ways of coping with life’s difficulties. It is help addressed to people who do not suffer from severe and long-lasting mental health disorders, but who have temporarily lost the ability to cope with a problem on their own.

In counselling work, the client’s situation is not compared against a statistical norm. Nor does the counsellor offer ready-made, tried-and-tested solutions. A person is treated as a unique individual whose life situation and difficulty are one of a kind. What works in one person’s situation may be completely ineffective for someone else.

The counsellor’s aim is not to diagnose the client, but to help them regain control of their situation. The counsellor works on the assumption that the client is able to find, on their own and by their own points of reference, the solution best suited to their situation. The difficulty usually lies in having lost a wider perspective. A client who at a given moment cannot draw on the full range of their knowledge and feelings becomes locked in a loop, choosing a way of behaving that does not work.

The work is relatively short and may take from 1 to a dozen or so sessions. A longer process happens fairly rarely.