Counselling is available as a service to support people with a range of issues, but I reckon if we were to put all of those queries into a pot and boil them down to their essence the overriding desire in all of them is for something to change – to ‘no longer feel like this’ or to ‘feel better’ or to ‘understand myself better’. There is a hope for a difference in the before and after counselling. Have you ever been to counselling and nothing happened….nothing changed? You talked and talked but didn’t see much happen in your everyday life. Why is it that some counselling works and some doesn’t? It’s well known that the relationship with the
If we look at the concept of change in general, it can divided into various parts. For instance, the changes we make in our life are partly in our control and partly outside of our control. We can sometimes change jobs, choose whether to have a partner, our living situation. Also a number of changes our outside of our control e.g. the death of a loved one, health issues, the cost of living etc. The ebb and flow of external life factors come into the counselling room regularly, and I can see where I support people as they navigate the mountainous ranges of external life changes. More often than not though, counselling involves a desire to navigate and change the internal world – to dismantle the irrational brick walls one keeps banging one’s head against, to remove the dark cloud that keeps appearing over one’s head or to wade through a forest of repeating patterns to see some sort of way out.
What is this internal life anyway? It’s not really a brick wall or a forest. It can be useful to use metaphors but let’s see if it’s possible to describe that inner life more directly. To put it simply, when I refer to the ‘inner life’, I’m talking about the ebb and flow of sensations in the body that create emotions, feelings and thoughts. Also, I’m referring to the internal monologue and also the time when the brain daydreams. Sensations, emotions, thoughts and daydreaming all combine together to create responses to the situations of every-day life.
So when you come into counselling saying, I’d like to change this or that, what you’re really asking me is ‘can I change the way my brain and body responds to the world – can my brain and body respond differently?’
You can come to counselling and talk till the cows come home but often nothing changes – your responses stay exactly the same. How frustrating is that! If you’re looking for change in therapy, I’d say that what you want is not to just talk, but for your brain and body to have an experience that shifts your way of being in the world. For example, I could support you in therapy by helping you address anxiety in the following way e.g. breathing techniques, mindfulness apps, going into nature, exploring what makes you anxious etc. All these top-down approaches are fab and do make a difference, but they don’t get right into the internal landscape and search all the corners with a torch looking for what’s at the root. Everyone has the capacity to feel anxious, but often, the unique components that created that anxiety are entirely unique to the individual. And finding that root can be transformational for people in counselling. This requires a bottom-up approach instead!
One way into the bottom-up approach is through the imagination, coming into contact with the body-mind without its rational defences. According to researchers we spend nearly half our lives day-dreaming (2010, Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T). The hypnagogic state (a suggestable state between wake and sleep) is rich territory which can be accessed through experiential work in therapy to affect changes to the internal world. If you’re interested in exploring the world of day-dreaming to affect change in your life let me know. This is a powerful way of working and can be hugely transformative.
This way of working fits well for people who can access their visual imaginary dimension. For people who are more aphantasic, the same experiential work can happen through the use of objects and sand-tray work (this is also available if working in person together).
References
1. Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science (New York, N.Y.), 330(6006), 932.
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