What happens in counselling sessions?

Counselling is a talking therapy, where we explore your story of what the problems are in order to understand the deeper problems behind it. In therapeutic terms we call this the narrative (the story) and the Process (what’s going on underneath).

Understanding your Narrative (your story in counselling)

This is the way you describe your experiences, these might be:

• Interactions with other people
• Things you’ve chosen to do or not do
• Things you hold accountable or blame for outcomes or experiences
• The things you use as evidence in arguments or to prove to yourself you’re right about something.

Understanding your Process (what’s happening underneath the story)

This is how you interpret and understand what the story means, these are your:

• Beliefs
• Expectations
• Feelings

These are happening underneath the story, maybe unconsciously or subconsciously. Quite often these are ways of understanding the world that developed in early life or through repeated experiences. Sometimes these are healthy and sometimes they’ve developed as ways to survive difficult or traumatic experiences.

An Example: Narrative and process in action

Imagine you have two people Jerry and Sam, two separate people living separate lives in separate places.

One morning Jerry wakes up and as they get out of bed they stub their toe, hard its bleeding and sore. Jerry shouts expletives, throws the items on their bedside table across the room and storms off into the shower mumbling angrily. They tell themself how useless are, that they can’t even get out of bed properly. Jerry spends the rest of the day angry and self-critical and multiple things continue to go wrong throughout the day.

One morning Sam wakes up and as they get out of bed they stub their toe, hard its bleeding and sore. Sam grabs their toe and wraps some tissue around it, says “Ouch that really hurt!” Sam sits still for a few minutes taking some deep breaths and waits for the bleeding to stop, before getting on with the rest of their day.

Making sense of your reactions

Two people had the exact same experience but very different responses. The story was the same, but the process was different.

In counselling we explore the process behind the story and discover that Jerry had a very critical parent who punished them and put them down. Whenever they made a mistake no matter how small, they were told they were stupid and shamed. Jerry learned to speak to themselves the way their parent spoke to them. They developed the belief that they’re a failure and have very low self-esteem. This gets reinforced every time Jerry makes a mistake and criticises themself.

Sam had a difficult upbringing, but they had grandparents who showed lots of love and affection. Sam would spend time with their grandparents whenever they needed care. They learned coping strategies like deep breaths and gentle care, so when something happens, they have healthy resources and a good sense of self-worth to lean on to get them through.

How ounselling helps with self-esteem, anxiety and emotions

When we understand our process and can make sense of how it came to be, we begin to create space between a trigger and our response. This gives us the opportunity for change. Counselling can equip you with tools to manage low-self-esteem, anxiety or big emotions like anger, sadness, grief.

This can help someone like Jerry move from being incredibly harsh to themselves and maintaining low self-esteem, to developing a self-compassionate inner voice that offers care and builds healthy self-esteem.

How couples counselling and relationship therapy can help

Couples counselling can help you to learn how these different processes intermingle with your partner’s and explain the deeper issues in your relationship. Through Couples counselling you can learn how to navigate conflict, rebuild trust, repair after a betrayal and speak the same language. This can help you develop a healthier and more intimate relationship with your partner.

If you’d like to know how counselling could help you either as an individual or as a couple, feel free to get in touch for a free call (no strings attached) or to book a session.

Wherever you are in your readiness, I hope you’ve found something useful from reading this.

Warmly

Kate