How how do people change or does counseling work?
Counselors don’t always agree about what makes people change for the better; but
several ideas have been suggested:
1. Universalization is curative. When people realize that they are NOT alone but that others have similar problems, they see that human suffering is universal and feel connected to all of humanity.1
2. Insight is achieved through an increase in understanding of oneself and others and gaining different ways of understanding behavior and motives. Finding a meaning to human existence and suffering is insightful and feels good to us because some anxiety and depression in related to not understanding. This inner awareness of personal conflict and suffering leads to change by opening up the will to change.2
3. People often change for the better when they feel they are getting unconditional positive regard or love from a therapist or significant other. This total
acceptance may have been a missing part of life.
4. Ventilation is quite effective in helping people because it is a release of energy that may have been pent up. People feel better when they are able to fully express the depth of their feelings, channeling tensions and pain in a setting in which safety and acceptance is a given.
5. Hope and faith are curative because people realize that no matter how bleak the look of the present, the future will be different, positive in some way if a commitment is made to treatment or change. Hearing others, who have made it through the same experience, declare hope is encouraging.
6. Transference is described as the bonding experience between the client and the counselor or group members and it is this trust relationship, similar to past relationships that form the basis of all change in counseling.
7. Modeling is helpful because people can use the example of others who are heroes and incorporate their heroes’ good attitudes and behaviors into their own life.
8. Altruism is curative because in the giving of unconditional positive regard and care to others; people realize they are important to others, improving self esteem.3
9. People improve when they are able to openly admit to a counselor, significant other and/or group that there is something wrong with them or their behavior and they want help to change. This is a genuine
readiness to change.
10. Sometimes, people are able to change when they have more
information or education about feelings, meaning of symptoms, wellness, coping skills, and communication.
As the logo suggests, Pittsfield Counseling Associate is a private practice which places emphasis on the relationships between people including the counseling relationship. People improve when they are able to feel connection. Connectedness to the counselor means there is no shame in asking for help. “No Man is an island…each is a piece of the continent, part of the main.”4 And so it is that the counseling in this private setting is like a journey to becoming a fuller person. The therapist is like a friend who walks with you part of the way until you can see your way clearly to your next level of growth or direction in life. The best therapist, it is said, are those who have a keen sense of the struggles and have themselves sat in the seat of the client and so can empathize and offer true life comparisons or markers for their client’s journey.5
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