There are several “for sures” involved in searching for someone who will share a very special relationship with you. These are:

someone who is qualified to see you (advanced mental health degree, licensed to practice, several years of experience, is trained to work with your problem or set of issues, and someone who you can afford to see often enough to set you on the road to change)

But an additional one and one I feel most often sets the stage for successful counseling is, can I trust this person? Yes, you might agree, but how do I know this right at the beginning? One pretty positive indication that you are with someone you can trust is to share something personal with this therapist and see how the therapist “holds” that information, how what you shared is treated by this person. Was it treated with respect, with sensitivity, and did it give you a feeling of safety with this person. It’s not necessary to reveal your deepest, darkest secret, just something that’s close to you and has importance to you. You can trust your intuitive self on this one.

When I was first married the minister who was to marry us required that we attend a couple of “before marriage” counseling sessions. We dutifully went to these sessions and although I had great respect for our minister, the sessions brushed lightly over three topics (the top three reasons for divorce). They were; (1) sexual adjustment (2) money issues and (3) in-law relations. Nothing much was uncovered during these sessions, we were married and 12 years later divorced. The divorce had very little to do with any of the three topics.

But that’s not to say that these three were not causes for divorcing couples. Many times divorces’ themes are found within these areas but for me, as a therapist, the most important thing to look at in the pre-marital counseling session is communication. No matter what other issues divide a couple, the ability to talk to each other in a non-destructive way holds the key to creating a healthy relationship. Now it can happen that a couple in love and committed to each other can enter the relationship without the skills necessary to navigate through their differences, no matter how convinced they are that their affection for one another will see them through. There are several skill sets that couple can successfully learn but first, they have to realize there are some deficits (as well as strengths!) to they can bring there attention to bear on them.

Pre-marital counseling is often very revealing and can highlight areas of strengths as well as areas needing more practice and attention. Entering into some counseling sessions with someone experienced in relationships can often start off a relationship in a positive direction. It’s time and money well-spent.

My last post addressed the benefits of counseling but when it comes to benefiting fully from the experience, the number one factor that spells “success or failure” is definitely the quality of the counseling relationship, in other words, the strength of the connection between the therapist and the client. There has been many studies pointing to the truth of that statement. It’s easy to see why.

Any change process is encouraged by the “human connection”; that is, the reality of the fact that both the client and therapist are on their own journeys and therefore have a deep empathetic understanding of the processes facing each other. This is true in spite of the fact that the client has an individual problem(s) not necessarily related to what the therapist’s life issues are. The power of this sharing of humanness and the feeling that the client is not alone but is connected to the therapist is the factor that encourages the change process to proceed regardless of the particular “techniques” that are employed.

It also is true that any close relationship takes not only time but also an energetic commitment to its’ health and functionality. As you can see, the counseling relationship is not only of a special kind but also very valuable to any goal of change that a client desires.

This is the first of several blogs relating to the counseling process and how you, the reader, might benefit by what I offer.

Most people believe that the primary benefit derived from counseling is insight. Insight into their own behavior perhaps; in the form of “why do I do this or that” or “how will this change I’m thinking about doing really effect me?”

Another benefit is often seen as going to a place where one can express oneself freely and without judgment. This is often an exercise in “getting it all out…finally!”

A third commonly thought of benefit is being able to get “a professional’s opinion about what is going on in my life (or the lives of others) and what I can do about it”.

Don’t misunderstand, I completely support all the benefits described above and I think all are equally valid. But there is one very special benefit that I would like to focus on for a bit.

Neuroscience has confirmed that new neuro pathways, that is, new behaviors, can be established. In short, the good news is that people can change even long-established habits and behaviors. The question is, how can you benefit by these revelations? The answer is through counseling. A good counselor can help you build these new pathways by helping you establish new behaviors AND creating opportunities to practice these behaviors. The counseling relationship will help you rehearse and practice your new behaviors until they are integrated and become a part of you.

One of the emerging criticisms of conventional psychotherapy is that therapists can let their clients off too easy, not insisting that the new behavior sought is performed often enough to really stick. As a result, many former clients have complained that what they came to counseling for dissolved away and left them wondering what really happened and did they waste their time and money invested in change that was , in the end, illusive.

This last benefit is perhaps the most lasting.