How understanding its function may help you decide if counselling is for you.
The term “processing” in counselling and psychotherapy is used to illuminate or make sense of events or experiences that come into the counselling session and are changed in some way through the interactions between client and therapist. There are a number of ways that this can be useful.
Focusing on past events or behaviours in a counselling session, where there is a sense of calm and safety, provides an opportunity to explore these experiences or behaviours leading to a fresh perspective using the knowledge and skills acquired in adulthood. These can help to re-calibrate feelings and emotions around events that have become troublesome and weighty, draining mental wellbeing and energy. Challenging assumptions based on past experiences can relieve anxiety and fear. Reality checking whether events of the past will occur again and accepting that life is uncertain and cannot be controlled are steps towards processing an issue that can lead to a more contented life and relieve stress, anxiety and fear.
As soon as we are aware of ourselves as individuals we create a narrative or life story and as we enter our early school years there is an intense focus on our ability to construct our story and make sense of the world. Social interaction is important to us and having a coherent life story to relate to others is beneficial to us in terms of all of our relationships. Processing our life story can help us organise our experiences into a narrative form which in turn aids understanding where traumatic events have ripped apart our identity and sense of self. A function of counselling is to integrate all experiences thereby empowering the individual to see events that are traumatic or shocking as part of the narrative, but not the only narrative. Or to de-fuse their power and choose to incorporate them or reject them in a way that does not forever impact on the present or the future. A new way of describing these experiences can be empowering by acknowledging resilience and innate resources rather than being a “victim” and held hostage by the behaviour of others and a sense of powerlessness. In this process we can learn to have self-compassion and understanding rather than live in a cycle of anger and victim-shaming and blaming. This process reinforces our innate capacity and ability to incorporate and assimilate experiences and allow us to be flexible and less rigid in the way we view the world and perhaps reduce anxiety about unexpected events that make us feel confused, uncomfortable and defenceless.
At Providence Counselling we work with clients to process events that may be causing concern or distress in a compassionate and person-centred way. All our therapists offer a safe non-judgemental space to explore and renew thoughts and feelings about, for example, experiences in childhood and adolescence or events in the present day that may trigger a sense of uncertainty, vulnerability, fear and shame.
If you would like to know more about how we work please complete the enquiry form on our website today and discover the benefits of processing in counselling.
Fiona
October 2024.
Comments