Why counseling is important?

Counseling is a joint effort between a client and a counselor; wherein professional counselors support clients in identifying goals and potential solutions to problems. Emotional turmoil, difficulty communicating, issues like anxiety, depression, and even schizophrenia can be addressed with the support of a counselor.

Counselors work with clients to improve communication and coping skills, support health self-esteem, behavior change, and overall mental wellbeing. Counseling comes in many forms.

• Individual counseling is one on one counseling.
• Couples counseling helps couples address relationship issues and strengthen bonds.
• Family counseling supports families in addressing areas of difficulty that they may encounter.
• Group counseling usually involves a counselor working with 8 to 10 people on the same or similar issues.

At some point in life, everyone experiences a bump in the road. These challenges may be changing careers, navigating the end of a relationship, recovering from substance use, working through anxiety, managing stress, or learning to live with a mental health condition like depression, bipolar disorder, or something else. Counseling is a treatment that considers the individual and their unique circumstances when creating treatment plans.

There are also many areas of specialty that counselors may work within: grief, addiction, relationships, and more. The research support for counseling as a viable treatment makes it extremely important. There are many modalities, theories of treatment, and interventions. Counselors receive training in multiple methods or their preferred methods and are ethically bound to use treatment modalities that have scientific research support as being helpful.

Some common modalities utilized are cognitive behavior therapy or CBT, dialectical behavior therapy or DBT, EMDR or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, biofeedback, ACT or acceptance and commitment therapy, person-centered therapy, and more. Counseling has been researching proven to treat anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD, attachment disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD, personality disorders, and more.

While medical approaches and treatments with medication can be helpful, they may not be the first choice for every person or appropriate. Medication adherence and outcomes are often improved by therapy (also called counseling). Counseling empowers clients with skills that can last a lifetime and support them as they work through problems in ways that are best suited to their needs and preferences, making it a unique and important treatment option.

For more information on the counseling profession and its many branches, visit the American Counseling Association website or the National Board for Certified Counselors.