On this page, we talk about counselling.

On this page:

• What counselling is
• Finding the right counselling for you
• Different types of counselling
• Example story

When you get counselling, you talk with a person called a ‘counsellor’.

You can talk with them about problems in your life.

For example, if you feel:

• angry
• scared
• that you do not know what to do.

You can also talk about:

• what you want in your life
• how you feel about yourself
• your relationships with other people, like your friends and family.

  Your relationship with someone is how you are connected to them.

Your counsellor will work with you to explore:

• why you feel the way you do
• how you can heal and change.

You can get different types of counselling.

For example, counselling that focuses on:

• problems in your relationships

or

• something that happened to you when you were younger.

It is important to find the type of counselling for what you want and need.

It is a good idea to think about what type of counselling could help you the most.

You might not find the right type of counselling straight away.

But you can try many types of counselling to find the one that helps you the most.

For some types of counselling, you might:

• only meet with a counsellor a few times
• work through one problem you have.

For other types of counselling, you might:

• meet with a counsellor over a long time
• talk about lots of different issues.

It is a good idea to think about whether you want to make changes in your life.

Or if you just want someone to:

• listen to you
• try to understand what you are going through.

You should also think about the type of person you are.

For example, if you:

• like to write or draw
• like to know how things work or why things happen
• find it easy or hard to talk about your feelings.

You might think a lot about what has happened to you in the past.

You might want to:

• do something about it
• move on from it.

It is also a good idea to know what you would like support with before you start counselling.

It can really help you and your counsellor if you can explain your problem in 1 or 2 sentences.

You can look for a counsellor that will make you feel comfortable.

For example, you might want to work with:

• a woman
• someone who has worked with people with disability before
• someone who knows how to support LGBTQIA+ people.

  The letters LGBTQIA stand for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex and asexual.

  The ‘+’ is for people who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community but do not talk about themselves using a word from this list.

We made a list of different types of counselling that might work for you.

You can search for more information about the types of counselling that you are interested in.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a type of counselling that can help you notice the way you think and feel.

A CBT counsellor will support you to improve the way you:

• think
• feel
• behave.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of counselling that can help you to accept stressful feelings and thoughts.

An ACT counsellor will support you to:

• slow down
• understand what is happening
• make choices that are based on what you feel is right.

Positive Psychology is a type of counselling that focuses on your wellbeing.

A Positive Psychology counsellor will support you to:

• feel good about yourself
• focus on what you are good at
• be happy.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a type of counselling that can help you to understand and accept the hard parts of:

• who you are
• how you feel.

A DBT counsellor will support you to manage your stress and behave in a more positive way.

Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Therapy are both types of counselling that focus on memories and feelings that:

• you might not know you have
• affect you strongly.

A Psychoanalytic or Psychodynamic counsellor will support you to understand how your past affects you now.

Mindfulness-Based Therapy (MBT) is a type of counselling that can help you slow down and understand what is happening.

An MBT counsellor will support you to:

• feel calmer in each moment
• understand what you are feeling.

Motivational Interviewing is a type of counselling where a counsellor asks you lots of questions to help you:

• think about choices you have made
• feel like you can change your life for the better
• make better choices in the future.

Narrative Therapy is a type of counselling that focuses on your own story about your life.

A Narrative Therapy counsellor will support you to:

• understand the story you have about your life
• work towards creating new and better stories about your life.

Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is a type of counselling that focuses on the goals you want to reach in your life.

An SFBT counsellor will support you to:

• make goals that you can meet
• work towards those goals.

Integrative Therapy is a type of counselling that combines lots of different types of counselling.

Integrative Therapy counsellors believe that everyone:

• is different
• needs different types of support.

Humanistic Therapy is a type of counselling that focuses on who you can be.

A Humanist Therapy counsellor will not focus on what is wrong with you.

They will support you to:

• feel good about yourself
• understand what you are able to do.

Expressive Therapy is a creative type of counselling.

An Expressive Therapy counsellor will support you to explore what you think and feel in a creative way.

For example, by:

• writing
• drawing
• making music.

You do not have to talk about what you are feeling if you do not want to.

Interpersonal Therapy is a type of counselling that helps you talk with other people in your life.

An Interpersonal Therapy counsellor can support you to share your feelings in a healthy way with the people around you.

We wrote a story to show an example of counselling.

The story we wrote is about a person called Tracey.

The story and the people in it are not real.

We made them up to explain counselling.

Tracey had a boyfriend who:

• hurt her
• made her feel scared.

Tracey still feels scared when she thinks about her boyfriend.

Tracey wants counselling to help her feel less scared.

But she does not want to talk about what happened to her.

Tracey finds a counsellor who focuses on Expressive Therapy.

The Expressive Therapy counsellor helps Tracey explore what she is feeling by:

• making music together
• drawing together.