What is counselling?

It has now been 2 years and 2 months since I started Wonderful Mess. And 2 years since I decided to join social media to share content on why and how counselling can help.

In January 2025 I observe that many people still hold the view that counselling is not for them.
That it is for people with "mental illness" or that they can just get on with their life without needing help.
The start of this new year therefore looks like a good time for me to go back to basics and go deep into why I believe counselling is essential in our current world.

For a start, let’s talk about what counselling is.

 If I ask you to think about a psychology session, my guess is that what you are picturing is actually a counselling session. 

Two people sitting in cosy armchairs in a nice room, one therapist and the other person talking about what is bringing them here.

The thing is, in Australia, counselling can be provided by a range of mental health professionals - This is very confusing to many people and I could not make sense of it myself when I first realised I needed help - I will explain this further in another blog article when I explain how to look for a counsellor.

But from now on, let’s agree that my use of the words counselling and counsellor refers to what is also commonly called therapy. 

Counselling is therapy for the mind, but not just. 

We often think of counselling as talk therapy: talking about what is going on in the client’s life. However therapists can also use many different types of therapies (or what we call modalities) while providing counselling. You may have heard before about animal-assisted therapy, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing), etc. 

Again, I will talk about this in more detail in blogs to come on how to look for a counsellor.  

Here is how I would define counselling:

Counselling provides a space that is pretty sacred, where you matter. Where someone’s attention is fully focused on you.

A space where you can be all that you are. And talk in all honesty about what you are experiencing, thinking, how you are feeling. 

Where you don’t have to pretend and you don’t have to manage the feelings of the person in front of you.