The talking cure
This expression was coined by one of Freud's first patients when the idea that symptoms could be relieved by what was basically a conversation was revolutionary.
Therapy and counselling are a particular kinds of concentrated relationship in which conversation is all that happens. But that conversation can lead to deep change.
Most of our social conversations are a kind of shorthand and we tend to say 'all right' or 'good' when asked how we are. In therapy there is space to explore how we really feel. Sometimes we don't know until we express it. You may have had the experience of saying something you didn't know you thought or knew until it was out of your mouth. This is one of the principles behind the talking cure. It is a question of having a safe enough space to explore yourself and what is going on.
The expertise of the counsellor is not like that of the doctor who prescribes a medication for a condition. The counsellor's training equips her as a doctor's does to deal with universal human issues but the 'cure' comes from the exploration of their particular weight for the individual which emerges during the work. The work is that exploration.
Short fixed-term work and ongoing work
Short-term work may be suitable where there is a single issue you want to focus on. Counselling can give you an independent space with support to think it through. Fixed-term contracts are typically for six sessions with an option to extend for a further six.
Longer-term work is more suitable where you feel a broader sense that life isn't working out as you'd hoped. Perhaps you feel caught in negative patterns of thought or behaviour.
Ongoing work can respond to a crisis and allow underlying issues to be explored when it feels safe enough to do so. It allows present-day dilemmas to be considered in the light of what has happened in the past and gives a framework for reflecting on events as they happen. The support of the therapeutic relationship, and how it expands how you think and what you can do, can be present throughout a continuing period of development and change.
“In therapy there is space to explore how we really feel.”
“Counselling can give you an independent space with support to think an issue through.”