Does Counselling Work?

A couple of years ago I started some evening course in counselling.

After a year and a half break I completed another counselling course.

I always try to remain intellectually honest. This can partly be attempted by trying to avoid 'confirmation bias' (Confirmation bias, also called confirmatory bias or myside bias, is a tendency of people to favour information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses). The best way to do this is to research views or concepts that oppose your own! It does your ego the world of good, it is also a good way to check if your view is correct or at least as concrete as you first thought.

So halfway through the counselling course I started researching the efficacy of counselling (aka psychotherapy). As ever there were positive and negative takes on this topic.

According to the research I found:

1. It doesn't matter what type of counselling you try (e.g psychodynamic, humanistic (e.g. person-centred / client-centred) or CBT) - the main factor in the efficacy of any type of counselling is how well the client bonds with the counsellor / therapist. To me this means that no type of counselling (model or school) is no better than any other [The Dodo bird verdict is a controversial phenomenon in psychology which states that all psychotherapies, regardless of their specific components, produce equivalent outcomes]
2. In a study following the views of counsellors and their clients, only 7% of clients thought that the counselling helped them, however counsellors felt that they helped almost 50% of clients. So in short counsellors over-estimate their own efficacy by seven times!!! As ever I have a strong opinion on this. Any profession with such a low success rate needs an overhaul! Can you imagine another profession with such a low success rate? What about a knee surgeon? Or a chef? Imagine a chef with a 7% success rate! It would mean that 93% of their food would be returned to the kitchen by the clientele! They would be sacked within 1 hour!

I HAVE actually been helped by counselling. I have seen about eight counsellors over the years (Yes I really am THAT crazy... and that skint!). They were almost ALL private counsellors that I had to pay for. I only resorted to private counsellors because the help from the NHS was so poor. I saw a counsellor about 13 years ago who administered CBT, she was a trainee and it was pretty awful, although she was nice which cheered me up, but her skills were bad. Only two of these counsellors helped.

Of the bad counsellors:

•   One had a curtain partition in the room where I had counselling. When the counsellor went to make a cup of tea I looked behind the curtain and saw her husband listening in. Presumably a jealous psycho husband who didn't trust her with male clients. I stormed out and she tried to ask me what was going on. I complained to her about her husband behind the curtain. I later reported her to the BACP (governing body for counsellors in the UK) and the local police. Neither of them did anything. The counsellor tried to make out I was crazy and that her 'husband' was just a reflection of me in a mirror!
• A psychodynamic counsellor (based on a type of counselling invented by Sigmund Freud who was obsessed with sex) had a bed in the therapy room and tried to relate the conflict with my male boss as 'sexual tension'. I kept trying to get the topic of conversation off sex, which was NOT relevant in this case, but unfortunately this counsellors was totally obsessed with sex. I commented that he had severe issues, and I left.
• Another counsellor after about 2 months advised that I take up drinking because I was apparently uptight. I was teetotal for 5 years before and I did actually start drinking. It DID make me feel a bit better at the time HOWEVER this is not great advice from a counsellor.
• I also went to group counselling at one point. I was the only man. Most of the women their blamed their mental health issues on men, maybe this was fair in their situation, however they transferred their hatred on to me. Rarely directly but they would say something like "All men are nasty.... oh except you". This made me feel awful and the counsellor leading the group did nothing to address this constant bullying. My self-esteem was at an all time low BEFORE I began, and I have to admit that it almost made me commit suicide.

Another shocking piece of research is that para-professional counsellors (para-professionals are professionals who use another professional skill alongside their official job, but who have little or no training in that skill) have greater success in helping clients than professional counsellors with the full 3-5 year training. I feel this is because para-professional counsellors have retained their intuitive nature in regards to how they relate to people, whereas professional counsellors have been trained so much that they no longer appear authentic to the client. What this means is that the bond between client and counsellor often fails or lacks strength because the client sense consciously or unconsciously that the connection is fake. Also I don't feel someone can be trained to be a counsellor. People can't be taught to have the levels empathy required, they either have it or they don't.

So in short as you can see... the counselling profession needs to go a long way to getting where I needs to go.

The other issue I've seen is that counsellors who have trained in a particular type of counselling tend to preach that THEIR type of counselling is the best and all other types aren't as good. This smacks of intellectual dishonesty at worst and ignorance at best.

So if you are looking for a counsellor then try and speak with them on the phone first and see if you sense a connection. If you do then try them out. If they seem OK then try them out and see if you eventually connect with them. The connection, as I previously said, is the biggest factor that predicts the success of counselling received.

The other thing that counsellors tend to do is over-estimate their abilities to empathise. Empathy is just a guess at how another person feels, often by talking to them as well as an intuitive take on how they 'seem'. It is only a GUESS at what the person feels like, and this should be remembered. We never TRULY know how someone feels. I believe a GOOD counsellor aims to be compassionate rather than over-focusing on empathy. If someone is compassionate to us then we tend to feel better... empathy comes out in the mix if we are compassionate.

Compassion often helps to heal a damaged people. I once asked everyone I knew suffering from mental health, what the most effective support they ever got was. It was NEVER a counsellor or psychiatrist. It was usually a friend or family member being kind to the person. One guy said that it was his daughter that shone light on his condition. Another person said it was their best friend who showed kindness. Kindness from others has definitely been my greatest saviour. Professionals come a definite second best. In short mental health professionals do very little from what I've seen! Sorry guys but if you feel differently then please comment. My experiences have been awful so far. Although in the last week it seems that the professionals are attempting to start offering me support. The only professional I can think of who has helped me is my mental health advocate who belongs to a voluntary organisation and not the healthcare system.

After realising that being trained in counselling would actually make me a worse counsellor, I stopped the courses. Counselling is the only profession it seems where after the training the person is worse than a complete amateur. Shocking, yet backed up by research!