What is counselling?

Until you have had counselling, it can be hard to understand what it involves and how it can help. A client recently wrote a beautiful review for us, which gives a perfect analogy of her experience and may help you understand the marvel of counselling.

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

I have a knitted scarf as old as me.

It looked in a sorry state, neglected and had lost a lot of colour. I was needing help with it. The Terrace introduced Deborah at the time when I was looking for a counsellor and I started meeting with Deborah just before Christmas.

We looked at my scarf in the first session and Deborah agreed that it was kind of out of control.

I couldn’t really find a beginning or end, it was just a heap of varying colours, with some frayed strands, some knots or holes, beautiful colours some hidden by staines. Some rows half knitted and then turned back, stitches dropped and ladders forming the whole length. It was in such a bad state that it gave me a constant head ache and sleepless nights.

Deborah reassured me right in the beginning that it was a lovely scarf, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with it or nothing to worry about, but it really did need attention; some mending, some adjusting and reshaping and most of it a lot of love.

That’s what we do when we meet; we examine my scarf together.

There are a lot of tears involved in looking at old stains and washing them off to reveal its natural beauty. Deborah offers her skills to help me look and examine old knots and persistently wrong stitches and patterns and how to adjust or mend them. I needed, and still need to learn, that I did actually not start knitting this scarf, but that I took it on and continued with it. Deborah helps me to look at it to see where someone had deliberately started wrong patterns and how I still follow them. She helps me to change some of the patterns and refresh and add colour. We look at old and new parts and Deborah often asked me to hold it to the light and look at how beautiful it is and how much work I have put in to make it so colourful , interesting and cosy.

I wear this scarf every day. It still can get really very scratchy and uncomfortable, but then I still work on it and will do so until the end.

I appreciate and value Deborah as a person and a fellow human being, with a great sense of humour, a big smile, natural compassion and empathy. I value her as a therapist, with a wide range of techniques and methods to address and understand and tease out all the things I bring to our sessions, and I value her feed back and guidance. She does not shy away from challenging my thoughts, perceptions and beliefs. She always checks out that she understood me fully. She helps me to connect and understand how my past has and is shaping my present and helps me to understand “that some of my patterns are really not helpful, some don’t even exist in reality”. She helps me to learn to love my scarf.

Deborah and I agree on homework until the next session, I welcome having a clear focus. Deborah also always checks at the end of a session whether I want to meet again with her, it makes me feel free and unstuck, that every week I can decide whether the counselling session is still good for me. But she always keeps an appointment available every week which makes me feel really valued.

I feel safe in Deborah’s therapeutic hands and heart and feel that it is a therapeutic partnership with clear forms and shapes.

Isn’t that a wonderful story? If your scarf needs any attention, just drop us a message. We would love to be able to support you too.