I recently had 20 sessions of person centred therapy. It changed my life. While it’s fresh in my memory, I’d love to tell you all about it.
First of all, let me say that I was apprehensive before my first session. It’s natural if you are too. Counselling is a big step to take.
Although I had waited a long time for counselling, it still felt like a huge leap of faith to actually have my first session and I barely slept the night before it.
I grew to appreciate and even enjoy therapy though. At the halfway point I wrote 10 things I learned in counselling and I think you can tell that by then I was well settled.
Expect to feel awkward at first
Session 1 was awkward. Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, my counselling sessions had to be telephone based. I was disappointed to say the least.
After almost 4 years of waiting lists, I felt really let down by the system. To *finally* be offered some counselling only to find out it was on the phone? I felt like turning it down altogether. Fortunately I didn’t.
Meeting someone for the first time can be daunting, especially if you have social anxiety. I couldn’t understand how I would ever be able to open up to this stranger at all, let alone share my deepest thoughts.
The open and unstructured format of person centred counselling made it feel especially unlikely that I would ever feel completely comfortable. I felt so awkward and unnatural throughout and I just couldn’t imagine it getting any easier.
How person centred counselling works
Person centred counselling is a therapy approach that is patient led. It was founded by Carl Rogers, who believed that everyone is capable of reaching their full potential, given the right circumstances.
If you’re about to start person centred counselling, you should know that the counselling will be led by you and not guided by your therapist. It will be completely up to you what you talk about in each session.
The freedom of choice will eventually start to feel liberating, but it can be intimidating at first. You might find it helpful to prepare some notes or prompts ahead of time.
Your therapist will offer you empathy, honesty and respect. They will position themselves in your shoes and from your perspective. They offer you unconditional acceptance and value you for who you are.
Your therapist is not there to judge you or to fix all your problems for you. Instead, they will give help you explore your thoughts and feelings on your own and help you understand what skills and resources you already possess to resolve the issues that come up.
Realising your potential
With the help of your therapist, you’ll come to understand why you are experiencing certain fears, insecurities or intrusive memories and you’ll how to unpack them. A deeper understanding of yourself can bring you new ways of coping and add context to issues you’ve always struggled with.
You’ll learn how to make connections between the things you are worrying about now and events that have occurred in your past. Identifying your triggers really is the first step to being able to cope with them.
If you are going to resolve your own issues, what’s the point in going to therapy? Couldn’t you just do it on your own?
This went through my mind so many times before and during that first session. If my therapist isn’t really going to say much, why can’t I just work through this on my own without their help? Why do I need to put myself in the vulnerable position of sharing my fears, insecurities and trauma with someone I’ve only just met?
But your therapist’s role is so important in this process.
What your therapist does for you
Even now, after 20 sessions, when I try to resolve things without Angela (that’s my counsellor’s name), I sometimes get stuck in a loop. Internalised thoughts are very different to verbalised ones. It’s easier to be able to rationalise as you explain it to another person.
When you express what’s going on in your head aloud, you will find it easier to spot patterns of cause and consequence. Talking to someone whose job it is to see things from your point of view is so valuable.
And, unlike a friend, relative or untrained stranger, your therapist will never react to what you’re saying in a way that brings conflict to the session. You’re in a safe space and you can be honest about how you’re feeling without fear of upsetting or offending someone who is more deeply involved in your day to day life.
Also, your therapist is qualified to help you get to the answers you need. Their input (a thoughtful comment or question) can really show you a new perspective or priority that you hadn’t considered before. And your therapist will notice patterns in what you’re saying that could indicate a deeper issue you haven’t yet explored.
The rhythm you will eventually get into with your therapist is pure and special and will hopefully become one of the most positive parts of your mental health recovery. If your therapist is a good match for you, you should leave sessions feeling understood, accepted and valued. Although the first few sessions will be spent getting to know one another, settling in and learning how to make the process work for you so stick with it.
You’ll feel worse at first
I’m not going to pretend it’s easy. In fact, it’s really incredibly hard. The first few sessions are especially difficult and they could leave you feeling worse than you did before counselling. Don’t panic, this is normal.
Unless there’s a specific problem between you and your counsellor (which could indicate that you aren’t a good match), feeling worse after your first few sessions is just a normal reaction to starting the counselling process.
Talking about things you might have been avoiding, reliving your most difficult past moments and going over worries that have been circulating in your own head over and over is, of course, hard work. It’s draining, it’s exhausting and it’s triggering.
Depending on the severity of your issues, these first sessions are likely going to be just spent introducing yourself and explaining the things that have been affecting your mental health. It’s a lot of hard work, with none of the payoff that you were hoping for.
It’ll be really tempting to quit after each of these first few sessions. But please don’t give up.
It’s natural to feel worse right now, but it will get easier and you will start to see results.
But then you will start to feel a whole lot better
It took me around 4-5 sessions to actually start to believe in the process. Everything that came before felt like a frustrating trust exercise and I really struggled to see how it could possibly help me. But it did.
And just like magic, things started to get a little bit easier both in and out of counselling. I started to settle into the sessions and develop a kind of routine within them. I learned that I had to apply the things I was learning to my life and to remind myself of the things that had come up in counselling.
Over time, I started to look forward to the hour of expressing myself each week. My confidence grew both in and out of counselling and I found myself more able to set goals and make life choices based on what I wanted.
You will too. Nothing has ever had such a positive impact on my quality of life and I really hope that you can find your own way through this journey.
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Thank you so much for sharing! You brought up a lot of issues that people have with therapy, such as lack of access (e.g., long waiting lists), uncertainty about effectiveness (Is it worth it?), and the difficult starts (Should I stick to it?). I am happy that you have found it to be effective and beneficial for you! That’s awesome!