For People
COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR INDIVIDUAL CLIENTS - stress, anxiety, depression, phobias, relationships, trauma, addictions, your boss, your family, your job, bereavement, emotional worries
A TROUBLE SHARED – here’s just one example
As Jean described her problem, it became clear that some of Jean’s difficulties might, at least in part, result from possible clinical depression. Jean also mentioned that she had had an operation on her thyroid a couple of years ago and that she felt that she had never got over it. I agreed to see Jean for an initial assessment session so that we could decide on what sort of help she was looking for. I also wanted to give Jean a chance to make sure that she really wanted to enter into counselling with me. In addition, I also took the opportunity to ask Jean if she had seen a doctor about any of her problems and so I was a little concerned to learn that Jean had not been to see her GP for about 12 months. I therefore strongly urged Jean to pop into the surgery for a check-up before she came along for her first counselling session.
When Jean did come along for the first session, some five days after she had initially made contact, she presented herself in a very dispirited and unkempt sort of a way. She was scruffily dressed, in a very low mood, and obviously not taking much care of herself. Jean said that she was now under a final warning at work. She also told me that she and her family lived more or less disconnected and estranged lives even though they all lived together in the same house; they were more like room mates than any sort of a real family. Jean described herself as lonely, sad, and so totally fed up that she could hardly be bothered about anything, or anyone, at all; especially about herself. During this first session, Jean cried a lot, often became silent and she seemed to find it hard to look at me when she spoke and didn’t really seem to want to talk to me. I asked Jean why she had come along to see me and she said that actually she had nearly not bothered to turn up. However, back at the time when she had first phoned she had been feeling a little bit better that day. Therefore, at that time she though that it might be possible to find someone who could make her, “better all the time”. Today, however, she was much less hopeful. Rather despairingly she ended her account of her troubles by saying that she didn’t think that she was worth bothering about anyway and that she was probably wasting my time.
When she next came to see me, Jean was obviously feeling a little bit better. She had taken a bit more care with her appearance and was able to look me properly in the eye and respond to whatever was said to her. She told me that the doctor had said that physically she was fine and that even the thyroid problem had cleared up. However, he had also said that she was very depressed and so he wanted her to take some medication. She had not yet started taking her antidepressants as she wanted to hear what I thought first. This was because she “knew that all counsellors are against people taking pills”. I told her that it was sometimes necessary for medication and counselling, (and GPs), all to work together and pointed out that this was exactly what it said in the information leaflet that came with the pills.
Finally I asked Jean what she thought might be the best thing for her now to do. Jean thought for a moment and told me that although she had initially resented me more or less forcing her to go to the GP, she had later been surprised to find herself feeling quite relieved to realise that someone cared enough about her to be prepared to be seen as a bit of a minor bully, even if it was in her own best interests, “just like my Dad really- I do miss him so”. She decided that she would start taking her pills and that she wanted to carry on seeing me. When we next met, it seemed to me that her mood had lifted so much that it was almost like a stranger who had walked through the door. Jean’s counselling went on for a total of 8 sessions and at the end she was very much looking forward to her future.
