ACADEMY OF GUIDANCE & DEVELOPMENT

If you want to learn how to play cricket. If you get a champion who gives you a demonstration, shows you how to hold the bat, and throws a few spin balls at you, are you ready for Test cricket? Obviously, no. It is laborious hard work for months and years before you can perhaps even make it to your neighborhood cricket team. If you have been pulled down by a major illness, can you take fruit juice and vitamin pills for three days, and expect to be bouncing back to full energy? The answer is obvious.

​
        The same holds true of counseling. Counseling is a process of psycho-therapy (roughly translated as "healing the mind"). Greater the emotional wound, the deeper the hurt, the more chronic the problem, the more time it will take for the healing to be significant, it requires a will and desire to heal oneself. It requires consistency in following up with the counselor. The counselor knows that you are down and out, and may not keep up to your goal-setting promises. But he needs you to be frank and truthful with him, so that he can perhaps break it down into smaller goals, and give you a gentle push on the uphill task.

​Beware of placebo effect:
In medical terms, a placebo is a dud pill that only gives a psychological effect that healing is taking place. The same may happen at times in counseling. Within a session or two, you may feel that the situation has transformed completely and you are very happy. This elated feeling may be short lived and an illusion. Keep up with the process of counseling all the counselor feels that you have really made concrete progress.

Some of the factors that may hamper the progress of counseling are:

• If you do not tell the entire truth to the counselor.

• If you are going for counseling forcibly Just to oblige a loved one or under emotional blackmail. Keep an open mind.

• If you deny your own feelings, or evade certain Issues.

• If you expect the counselor to come out with some magic solution.

• If you expect the counselor to do your work (he is only a guide and   

•    moral support).

• If you have strong habits you find difficult to break.

• If you disagree with the counselor, and are unable to say so.

• If you do not keep up your appointments, and give gaps in your sessions.

When you do not make an effort to implement whatever you have agreed to do in your discussion with your counselor (attempting is in your own control, even though success may not be).
​          As explained earlier, counseling is a process that deals with your feelings, helps you improve your perspective, clear misunderstandings, and empowers you to take the right decisions. You will not be able to take the right decisions as long as you are emotionally disturbed, Hence the objective of the counselor is to provide you with a catharsis (pouring out and emptying out) of your strongest feelings. Only when the catharsis is complete, can the goal setting begin.
        ​​​​It is important to note that catharsis itself is a very major step forward in your healing. When you are no longer feeling choked up, half your objective has been attained, because you are now empowered to take the right decisions, not only with regard to the current problem, but also for all future hurdles. It is perfectly alright even if you wish to stop counseling after your catharsis is complete. You may feel that now you would like to tackle life on your own. If you feel so, all you have to do is to inform your counselor. He will not mind it. He may give you a few tips on how you can continue the process of moving forward by yourself, and he will not be in suspense waiting for you and wondering how you are. In fact, it will help if you do an introspection after every session with your counselor.
      
        If you need to do goal-setting with your counselor, the process may take a longer time. Often the counselor may help you set very small goals to see your capacity to move forward. It is better to small progress, than to attempt something big, fail, and feel even more disheartened. He will be patient with you, but you too need to be patient with yourself, and with the counseling process. In short, don't expect miracles. It may be tempting to just take some quick-fix advice from someone, and feel nice. But it is very counter-productive. Only YOU know which is the correct path you need to take. Remember that any decision you take should be YOUR decision. The counselor cannot read your mind, though he does have the capacity to help you analyze it. Life is a continuous struggle and challenge, and the counseling process you go through at one stage, will empower you to face later stages of life and the hurdles they may bring.
​​

        On the other hand, if you feel that you are not making any progress with your counseling, don't just drop out. First introspect whether it is due to mental blocks that you have created  for yourself, or whether subconsciously you are resisting change. Perhaps you are feeling uncomfortable or guilty about something, or maybe you have gone into a comfort zone you cannot pull yourself out of.
        Tell the counselor frankly what you feel, and ask for his response and help in even motivating you to continue counseling. If he cannot help you and you feel no purpose is being served by continuing, then you may inform him and either stop counseling, or seek an alternative counselor with whom you may  be able to develop a better rapport. Like in any other relationship, it is not just the skills of the counselor, but also compatibility between the two of you, that determines the rate of success.

        Similarly, become aware when the counseling is approaching termination stage. When you have resolved issues, are making progress, it is time to start reducing your reliance on your counselor. Never allow yourself to become emotionally dependent. The counselor will always be there for you if you have any setback or crisis in future, but when things are looking up, try to rely on your own mental strength more and more.

-Dr. Ali Khwaja.