Personal Experiences Using Talk Therapy.
Why Counselling?
As a registered social worker, I have had several opportunities to hear various stories and learn from people who have had personal challenges, experiences and difficulties that have led to mental health issues such as depression, loneliness, chronic sleep disturbances and other emotional issues. Unlocking narratives can be hard to talk about but in general it is a health factor that is commonly under-reported among people when they need to express their thoughts and feelings. People have continuously indicated how our own personal mental health can impact our personal day to day, but never realised that ‘counselling’ can be an option to help with stresses we are facing.
Upon various research related to coping strategies, it is commonly shown that people (more men compared to women) have had a difficult time vocalizing their stresses and anxiety, due to feeling shame, discouraged to believe ‘talking’ can be helpful for the mind and socially accepted to bottle up emotions and issues.
While providing counselling sessions to various people of different backgrounds, I have seen that many have similar stories about how the challenges within our day-to-day, surround issues such as, work-life balance; feeling isolated after long work hours; communication styles that are different from their spouses that ultimately causes limited time with family and friends; pressures of providing for the family vs taking time for family; decreased sleep that includes medical complications such as blood pressure, diabetes and other related health factors.
Moreover, clients have also illustrated that they have surrendered to ‘counselling’ or talk therapy because they received relentless encouragement from their spouses, as generally feeling shame and embarrassment would stop most people from seeking support.
I quickly learned that talking about the person’s overall structure of our everyday living wasn't about to change, but that the conversation around the value of how we feel and the way we respond to particular things happening was important to discuss. For this reason, my overall message was to inform my clients that narrative therapy (or talk therapy), is a way for them to release their stress and openly talk about what causes their anxiety in a safe space with a neutral person. Once trust and acceptance was built, I could instantly see self awareness emerging, of their current and future problems. The impact of decision making, limited focus and/or current coping strategies such as substance abuse and poor communication were some of the components hammered out through the talk therapy sessions.
In the end, the main learning behind the importance of counselling for our mental health, even people don’t want to reach out for support to discuss their stressors.
Many of them felt it was impossible to do with the difficult schedules and limited access to resources that would align with their day to day.
Areas of where people seem to find things difficult are; Work stress management, anxiety & depression, chronic disease & pain, men’s mental health management, elderly caregiver support, relationships, life transitions and grief & loss.
- Aman