Being a Counselor is its Own Form of Therapy

The job of a counselor is one that attracts people who have greater levels of empathy for others. A desire to help resolve emotional issues, guide in critical decision making, and provide the clarity for patients to make the right decisions for themselves are all aspects of the role of a counselor.

Indeed, with a counseling degree online, it’s possible to learn what you need through a structured course with modules and papers studied over the internet in pockets of free time. Being able to help other people is its own reward in many cases.

Taking on the Mental Burden of Each Patients’ Problems

Counselors take on the problems of their patients by listening to their difficulties in detail and considering what’s best for them both inside and outside of the therapy room. With patients that the counselor spends time with over many weeks, months or even longer, considerable thought goes into how they can best be helped or assisted through their life difficulties.

While the burden of taking on the problems of other people is not inconsiderable, it often provides greater clarity when dealing with complicated issues where it’s difficult to reach any meaningful conclusions in short 45-minute sessions.

Relating a Patients’ Difficulties to Past Experiences

In online counseling degrees, a counselor learns many effective methods to encourage patients to discuss their innermost concerns, so they can be helped. Counselors will often call upon their own personal experiences too. How can they understand the emotional turmoil that is caused when a long-term relationship has recently ended unless they’ve been through a similar experience before? In some cases, you have to have lived it because reading how it feels in a book doesn’t adequately convey the depth of pain that this type of life event can cause a patient.

Thinking About Patients’ Problems Leads to Thoughts of Your Own

Even when a counselor is not particularly introspective about their own life, when spending considering time thinking about their patents, it often leads them to consider their station in life. Perhaps their romantic relationship is not where they’d like it to be or relationships with colleagues at work are fractious and disruptive? A life examined is a life improved when putting in the head time to consider what is really going on and what’s good for the goose, is good for gander.

Celebrating Milestones & Victories

When working with patients over many months, it’s common that patients set goals for things they wish to work towards. These may be minor or major, but each represents a significant step forward in their progress. It’s important that their counselor celebrates these small victories and the milestones that each patient achieves because it marks true progress in their counseling journey. For the counselor themselves, it’s also hugely rewarding emotionally because it demonstrates that the time they’ve put into helping their patient is paying off for them.

In many ways, the counselor works alongside each of their patients to help them address life issues and move forward in a productive manner. A victory won is a victory shared in the counseling room. When a patient succeeds, the counselor does too, so there’s a symbiotic relationship working there that’s very satisfying.

For more information about therapy, click here to read more from BetterHelp.