Published on 12, July, 2020
I had what I consider my final session today, it's not her, it's me. It's on me to fix my problems and move on now.
I wish I could have addressed my rejecting of my autism in the past, my repressed sexuality, or my general disappointment in humankind, but alas those subjects were perhaps beyond her charity mandated training. (Mind Swansea)
I just reiterated the same junk and she and I just didn't connect at all. 50 minutes is a small window so I couldn't delve into the stuff that mattered and I said my goodbye over email.
Also I'm tired of talking about myself and the person on the other side of the room not giving a ***. A paying client more than a person. I might as well take a vow of silence and stay in the background.
Please don't try to convince me to try again, I have been pushing my luck with the local services for years and I've just about run out of chances.
ExplodingHeads said:those subjects were perhaps beyond her charity mandated training.
I would steer away from counsellors in general as they are not really the right tool to use for autism processing. Therapists are the way to go or possibly a psychologist for more serious issues.
To understand the differences, have a look at:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/therapy/psychologist-vs-therapist-vs-counselor
It will help to manage your expectations as to how much they will "care" about you. They will express a professional level of care but are trained not to get involved / invested in you at the level you may want. They are more likely to be goal oriented which is probably what you need (as opposed to what you want).
It is a bit like expecting a gentleman expecting a lady of negotiable affection to "care" about them after their time is up - they can do a great job during the session but both parties need to know what they are getting when going into it, and it does not last beyond the (happy?) ending tme.
Iain, The line between a counsellor and a therapist is quite blurred once you get away from simply listening and rephrasing what a client has said. I was a counsellor and that wasn't just what I did, I was trained to do a lot more. Counsellors, therapists and psychologists all have different tools in their tool boxes which they can use to help you fix yourself, if they do the job properly they willl teach you those tools and how to use them so as you can keep on fixing yourself.
I'm not sure about goal orientation to be honest, I dont' think that's a particulalry helpfull approach, somebody comes to see you often with quite amorphous feelings of unhappiness and after a couple of months a big can of worms or two are uncovered. If you've set an unrealistic goal at the start then the client is going to be unprepared, you will be unprepared, if you've set a time limit on the number of sessions then you will not have time to deal woth whats come up, it would probably have been better for the clients overall mental health not to have started than to leave them hanging with worms crawling all over their psyche.
TheCatWoman said:The line between a counsellor and a therapist is quite blurred
The point I was making was that therapists (or psychotherapists to give them their full name) need to be qualified in their field and this involves training in the tools you mention plus a lot of hands on practice with patients (under supervision) and sessions with their colleagues.
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/education/psychology-and-counseling/become-a-therapist/
To become a licensed therapist, you need to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree, complete a set amount of supervised clinical experience hours and obtain licensure.
Councellors have a much lower threshold for being able to practice which leads to a significant variation in skill level and quality by comparison.
I have used both and for autism related issues I would always now use a therapist who has had some training in the areas of autism I'm concerned with.
I have used counselling before, and the lady doing this was very helpful for the issues we talked about (not ausitm related) and helped me make a decision that I was struggling with.
The Forbes link does highlight the difference:
The difference between these professions concerns the depth and length of treatment provided. Counseling often implies short-term treatment to address particular, limited mental health challenges.