anthony
Founder
This has popped its head a few times for me lately, and I wanted to post my thoughts on this topic, and see what others think.
I believe professional counselling should cease once you have finished dealing with your trauma. This means that when you turnup to counselling / therapist / physician, and you really have nothing more to talk about than what is currently going on within your normal weekly life, then you have reached the point of getting everything out of you. Nothing a counsellor does from this point on is going to continue to help you with your trauma IMHO.
Counsellors are a required part of healing from PTSD, because as much as the support we give you here, a support group you attend could give, etc etc, a counsellor has the professional experience behind them of solution building (well, most do anyway). As much as someone like myself could help you online, without that face to face emotive communication, healing is much more difficult. Besides that, people like myself cannot help everyone, nor a counsellor or physician, as a person only has so much time and scope to cope, then they must also maintain themselves. A good variance and mix of support is what I see the essential tool to faster healing.
So IMHO, I believe counselling can cease at that moment you have discussed and have received all the feedback possible on your trauma.
What tends to happen though, and this is not a bad thing against counsellors or physicians, is that once trauma has been discussed in every aspect, they want you to continue coming back regardless. Now honestly IMO, this gets more to the business side than the support side of things. If you attend community / free counselling, you will often find the therapist or counsellor will cut your sessions once they believe you have spoken about everything, because their duties are not about money, but about treating others who now need the same counselling you have just had.
Private practices though also look at the bottom line, even though this is not their intent, it is still a factual part of their business. This does not make a private counsellor / therapist a bad person, because they have gone through years of tertiary education to get where they are, and generally at considerable cost to themselves, though counselling is not needed forever, nor is the constant financial hardship that goes with it when paying for private practice. This constant extra financial burden often creates more problems for the family, thus you end up talking about finances with the very private therapist your employing and is part of that financial issue. Generally they will never mention you should cut their weekly or fortnightly cost from your budget, but instead give you other solutions. A really good one will do exactly that, or provide you help for free. Though again, this does not make them bad people, because that is their job and they must earn a living also, and have done the work to deserve it.
So the decision time is when "you" feel as though everything has been talked about that can possibly be talked about in regard to your trauma. Once that is done, honestly the rest is up to you. You need to work on implementing the strategies, find free support networks, like this forum, though generally more are required than just one. For example, if your trauma is because of childhood abuse, then your PTSD can be supported here, but you could also get more beneficial information in regard to the abuse at another forum or local support group. The same would go with a person who endured rape. Rape groups exist, online and offline, though they do not specialise with the PTSD aspects. So you would try and get the best from two groups to give you the broadest aspects and wider picture for best recovery.
Me personally, I cut my counselling after I had spoken and recieved all I was going to get from my trauma. I cut my doctors at the same point, and then once I was off medication, the doctors fully gone. I then used what I had learnt and continued my own road to healing. Healing to me is no different from the path we walk getting PTSD, in that the path to healing can only be influenced so much by external factors, then you must do the majority of the work yourself.
I hope that covers my opinions for those who have recently asked, though I would be very interested in knowing others opinions on this matter, or what has / is working for others in regard to leaving counselling and getting on with healing yourself. To me I always kept in the back of my mind, if I fall down, I can always go book another appointment and chat some more. Never had too though.... fingers crossed it remains that way.
I believe professional counselling should cease once you have finished dealing with your trauma. This means that when you turnup to counselling / therapist / physician, and you really have nothing more to talk about than what is currently going on within your normal weekly life, then you have reached the point of getting everything out of you. Nothing a counsellor does from this point on is going to continue to help you with your trauma IMHO.
Counsellors are a required part of healing from PTSD, because as much as the support we give you here, a support group you attend could give, etc etc, a counsellor has the professional experience behind them of solution building (well, most do anyway). As much as someone like myself could help you online, without that face to face emotive communication, healing is much more difficult. Besides that, people like myself cannot help everyone, nor a counsellor or physician, as a person only has so much time and scope to cope, then they must also maintain themselves. A good variance and mix of support is what I see the essential tool to faster healing.
So IMHO, I believe counselling can cease at that moment you have discussed and have received all the feedback possible on your trauma.
What tends to happen though, and this is not a bad thing against counsellors or physicians, is that once trauma has been discussed in every aspect, they want you to continue coming back regardless. Now honestly IMO, this gets more to the business side than the support side of things. If you attend community / free counselling, you will often find the therapist or counsellor will cut your sessions once they believe you have spoken about everything, because their duties are not about money, but about treating others who now need the same counselling you have just had.
Private practices though also look at the bottom line, even though this is not their intent, it is still a factual part of their business. This does not make a private counsellor / therapist a bad person, because they have gone through years of tertiary education to get where they are, and generally at considerable cost to themselves, though counselling is not needed forever, nor is the constant financial hardship that goes with it when paying for private practice. This constant extra financial burden often creates more problems for the family, thus you end up talking about finances with the very private therapist your employing and is part of that financial issue. Generally they will never mention you should cut their weekly or fortnightly cost from your budget, but instead give you other solutions. A really good one will do exactly that, or provide you help for free. Though again, this does not make them bad people, because that is their job and they must earn a living also, and have done the work to deserve it.
So the decision time is when "you" feel as though everything has been talked about that can possibly be talked about in regard to your trauma. Once that is done, honestly the rest is up to you. You need to work on implementing the strategies, find free support networks, like this forum, though generally more are required than just one. For example, if your trauma is because of childhood abuse, then your PTSD can be supported here, but you could also get more beneficial information in regard to the abuse at another forum or local support group. The same would go with a person who endured rape. Rape groups exist, online and offline, though they do not specialise with the PTSD aspects. So you would try and get the best from two groups to give you the broadest aspects and wider picture for best recovery.
Me personally, I cut my counselling after I had spoken and recieved all I was going to get from my trauma. I cut my doctors at the same point, and then once I was off medication, the doctors fully gone. I then used what I had learnt and continued my own road to healing. Healing to me is no different from the path we walk getting PTSD, in that the path to healing can only be influenced so much by external factors, then you must do the majority of the work yourself.
I hope that covers my opinions for those who have recently asked, though I would be very interested in knowing others opinions on this matter, or what has / is working for others in regard to leaving counselling and getting on with healing yourself. To me I always kept in the back of my mind, if I fall down, I can always go book another appointment and chat some more. Never had too though.... fingers crossed it remains that way.