What is Counseling?
Counseling is a collaborative effort between the counselor and the individual seeking treatment. Professional counselors may work with individuals, couples, children, families, and/or groups.
Counselors support clients in many ways, such as:
- identifying goals and effective paths to reach them
- identifying potential solutions to problems that cause emotional turmoil
- improving communication and coping skills
- strengthening sense of self and self-esteem
- promoting positive behavior change
- learning proven stress management skills
Counseling can help you examine behaviors, thoughts, attitudes, and feelings that may be making a difficult situation worse. You can learn effective ways to deal with problems by identifying and building upon your own unique personal strengths. A counselor will encourage your personal growth and development in ways that match your values and your interests while best supporting your overall well-being.
What types of issues might be appropriate for someone to seek out a professional counselor?
- Stress, anxiety, depression, anger, irritability and other challenges
- Family/marital/partner relationship issues
- Parenting issues
- Career change, job stress or job loss
- Adapting to life transitions
- The death of a someone close
- Substance use and/or abuse issues
- Dealing with a disability
- Spiritual crisis
What does counseling involve?
- Counseling is very practical and involves common sense steps.
- Regular conversations with a trained professional.
- Learning to think about your current situation and how you want to change it.
- Learning more about how others have worked through similar situations.
- Learning more about how your situation may be affecting you and those around you.
- Learning and practicing practical steps tailored to you to help you achieve your own goals.
What are some of the common types of therapies?
Helping professionals are trained to practice in a wide range of treatment and service types. The following common, evidence-based, therapies are listed below; however, there are several other types of therapy that can be used. Consult this list for general information, but contact your provider for complete information about their practice and philosophy.
Common Therapies Used to Treat Combat Stress and PTSD include:
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) addresses the thoughts and beliefs that can be related to difficult feelings and behaviors. This approach is structured, directive, and goal-oriented. A therapist using CBT may teach relaxation skills, thought stopping techniques and may utilize homework assignments that help people make progress between sessions.
- Exposure Therapy uses carefully guided, repeated and detailed imagining of the trauma (exposure) in a safe, controlled environment, to help the person face and gain control of the fear and distress.
- Cognitive Restructuring is an approach in which individuals identify and examine upsetting or unnecessary thoughts about their trauma, challenge those thoughts, and replace them with more balanced and accurate ones.
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) helps to resolve difficult feelings and beliefs related to a trauma. Clients are assisted with information processing through sequences of dual attention, often involving eye movements, sounds, and/or taps while recalling a traumatic memory.
- Stress Inoculation Training reduces symptoms through anxiety reduction techniques, teaching coping skills, and correcting inaccurate thoughts related to the trauma.
Stages of Counseling
Counseling for combat stress reactions or PTSD often occurs in three stages.
- The first goal is to deal with the way trauma may have changed your emotional responses and how these altered responses can impact your behavior. It is important to identify these responses and learn to bring them back to an acceptable level. A trained counselor can introduce new skills that will support you in this process.
- As therapy progresses, the actual trauma should be discussed or in some manner dealt with to help the individual to fully process what has happened. Often, part of the traumatic response is because people have not processed or truly grieved, so then there is a grief period as the matter is discussed more fully.
- Once grieving occurs, many people need to start the process of learning how to be a part of the world again. Sometimes following a traumatic event, it takes time to learn to love, to have hope and to dream again.
How long will it take?
Each situation is different.
There is no set amount of time that can be prescribed to any particular issue. The counselor together with the individual client can best determine if only one session, a few sessions, or a longer period is required.
Support Group for Combat Stress
A support group for Combat Stress is a gathering of people whose lives are affected by combat stress and issues related to deployment. It is a gathering of people who come together to seek information, voice their concerns, and mutually share their experiences. The meetings provide an opportunity to discuss experiences and feelings, and to share information and solutions to common problems.
For some people, the most difficult step is walking through the door. Most find that, once they make the decision, the experience is helpful and supportive. A support group is not a substitute for medical treatment or professional counseling, and it is not a replacement for family and friends.
Each support group is unique in its membership and style. Group facilitators vary in experience and training. The format and capabilities of each group vary greatly and may change over time. Some groups meet once a month, but other groups meet twice a month or even weekly. Groups may be associated with a unit, a local hospital or other provider, but many others are created and led by individuals. As you select a group you may want to consider these factors. Some individuals try more than one group before they find the one that is best for them.
- Additional Resources:
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www.myshrink.com
Click this link provided by MyShrink.com that discusses what is counseling, myths about counseling and how it can be used to change your life. -
www2.gsu.edu
Click on this link provided by Georgia State University that answers "what is counseling?" but also describes what it is not.