Dr. Dawn-Elise Snipes says seek counseling when symptoms cause real distress or hurt your daily life and self-help hasn't worked. Counselors offer practical solutions through approaches like cognitive behavioral therapy or person-centered work. You're in charge: you hired them, you set the plan, and you can change it as life happens.
Hey there, everybody. Today I wanted to take an opportunity just to answer some questions that I frequently get about counseling. The first question is, how do I know when I need to go to counseling? And I wish I could tell you that there was a very clear answer, but there's not. It's kind of like when you have a cold. Some people go to the doctor as soon as they have a sniffle. Other people can be borderline pneumonia before they think they need to seek medical intervention. Now, the reality is probably somewhere in between. But when we're talking about mental health issues, everybody, and I'm confident saying that, I know that's an extreme word, but everybody gets depressed sometimes. Everybody feels anxious sometimes. You know, these emotions that we talk about, these symptoms that we talk about in terms of mental disorders, you know, it sounds really pathological and really scary. But ultimately, it's important to recognize that most people experience a lot of these symptoms occasionally. So that being said, if you're experiencing a symptom or a set of symptoms and it is causing you what we call clinically significant distress, it's impairing your ability to live your. Your high quality, rich and meaningful life, and you've tried to address it, and it's just not working, then it can be really helpful to talk to a counselor or a social worker or even your doctor. But a counselor is usually in a really good place to help you with practical solutions. A doctor may say, well, there's nothing physically wrong with you, or, or worse yet, minimize your symptoms. So I like referring people to counselors. A pastoral counselor or a clergy member can also be a really good help. It depends on who you feel safest confiding in. A counselor is not a magician. You know yourself better than that person knows you. You've been living in your body for 20, 30, 40 years, maybe more, maybe a little less. But you live with yourself every day. You know what works and you know what doesn't. Now, there may be other things out there you haven't tried, and those are the things that the counselor is supposed to know. But ultimately, you are the one who can look at a solution and go, yeah, that ain't going to work, or h. That seems like something that might work. Seems like something I might try. You are the expert in general on when your symptoms started, and you probably have an idea at about the root cause and what's. And what is causing those symptoms and maintaining them, what started it. So it's important to feel like you can talk to your counselor. So once you, I kind of went into the next question here. What, what do you do in counseling once you've determined, hey, I need a little help to get jump started or I'm stuck and I need somebody to help me move forward from where I am right now because I just can't quite shake these symptoms. All right, so a counselor can help you. Now, once you decide that you want to see a counselor, it's important to know that there are different types of counseling. Humanistic counseling or person centered counseling is the most non directive of the popular counseling methods now. And in humanistic theory, the premise is that if we provide a safe, supportive environment for you to explore your thoughts and feelings, you will, through basic free association, if you will, through talking, be drawn to your stuck points and process through them. Now that takes a long time. A lot of people would prefer some level of cognitive behavioral therapy in addition to humanistic. They want to feel heard, they want to feel empowered, they want to feel safe, they want to feel like the counselor is supportive of them. Okay, you know, that is not exclusive to humanistic therapy. That is something that should be true in every type of therapy. Whether you're talking about Freudian, psychoanalytic or you're talking about humanistic or cognitive behavioral. A lot of people think cognitive behavioral is very cold and impersonal. And it's not. Cognitive behavioral just tends to be more active. It tends to involve the person and saying, okay, let's make a plan and then let's use some principles of rapid cycle change to figure out what is going to help you move forward, what's going to help you get unstuck. When you first walk into a counselor's office, you sit down and remember you are the person in charge. Yeah, it's their office, but you're in charge. You're paying them, you hired them. Just like lawyer, you. If you're hiring a lawyer, you're the lawyer's client. If you're hiring an accountant, you're the accountant's client. If you're hiring a counselor, you're the counselor's client. You are the person that is hiring the professional to help you move forward faster. Yeah, you can do your own taxes, you don't necessarily have to have an accountant, but it sure goes a lot faster. Yeah, you can process your own stuff and do a lot of self help and probably eventually get to the same end point, but it certainly goes a lot faster if you have somebody who can help direct you along the way and show you some tips and shortcuts. But again, you are in charge and if it doesn't feel like you're making progress, if you don't feel like you get something out of most every session, then it's important to have a conversation with your counselor and say, you know what? I'm, I'm feeling like we're not making a lot of progress. This is what I was hoping to see happen. It's also within your right. And I really encourage people to have a copy of, of your treatment plan. All of my clients work with me to write their treatment plan. We do it together. So we're, we're both brainstorming what's going to work and what is manageable in every period of time. A week, a month, three months. And then I give them a copy of it. It's like their road map. You wouldn't go on vacation and say, hey, I've got two weeks off and I want to get to San Antonio, Texas, and just get in the car and start driving and turning wherever and, you know, not having a plan, not having some sort of directions. Now if you're driving and you run into road, road construction, you may have to take a detour. Same thing in life, same thing in counseling. You have a plan from how to, for how to get from where you are now to your rich and meaningful life. But along the way, while you're working on your stuff, other stuff may happen. You may lose your job or you may have some sort of crisis in your life. So you have to take a detour for a little while, and that's okay. You're not committed to that treatment plan 100%. It can't be changed once you write it. But that is your starting point, that is your guideline. And then if you need to detour, fine, you make an amendment to it. So ultimately, just kind to kind of sum this up. Counseling is a place where you can meet with somebody who's an expert on techniques and tools that can help you move toward your goals faster. But you are the expert on you. You know what's going to work for you, and you need to feel empowered to ask to be involved in your treatment planning, to ask for a change in approach. If it doesn't feel like it's working, you are the one that sets the tone.
