What Do Our Clients Think Of Counselling?

As part of our ongoing commitment to clinical excellence, where possible we ensure that we gather feedback from clients at the end of their work with us.  Feedback from the first half of 2014 has been unanimously positive.  

Those who have never tried counselling sometimes find it hard to see how talking can help.  In our experience, it helps people in a number of different ways, because different people take different things from the experience  Here is a sample of quotes where clients explain, in their own words, how coming to talk to one of our counsellors, has improved things for them.

Counselling has helped me…

“… to focus my thoughts in a structured way”
“… become more aware of my issues, which has made it much easier to cope with them”
“… realise what I can do to help me do the things I want to do”
“… to understand myself better, to forgive myself and to realise I can’t be responsible for other people’s happiness.”
“… to enjoy life when life seemed very hard and unbearable.”
“… see what I can change in my life.  It has also shown me that I can be too hard on myself and it is OK not to do some things that I felt I should or had to do”
“…to talk through complex and difficult family situations and find ways through them.”

At the end of my counselling I feel…

“… less vulnerable and stressed.  I now feel more in control and happy.  I am making positive changes in my life and am moving forward rather than feeling stuck in the past.  I have allowed myself to acknowledge the impact of past events and let them go.”
 “… it’s so much easier to deal with things.” 
“… a lot calmer and with no more loneliness feelings.  I now feel happy to engage with others”
“… I’ve started just being myself instead of pretending to be something I’m not”
”…  I am getting better at focusing on the here and now rather than holding on to things in the past that I can’t change and worrying too much about the future.”
“… more positive about life, and that it’s not bad to have good and bad days.  I feel less anxious and I’m starting to believe in myself a lot more.  I feel I have good ways to cope in difficult situations.”

All feedback collected and shared here is used with the client’s consent.  

Finally, a positive thought from a very satisfied client:

“Counselling has helped me loads!!  By helping me to understand the thoughts and feelings I have had in the past.  It’s helped me to find ways and techniques to manage them and most of all to understand them, why they are there...  Put simply, I think counselling saved my life.”