FAQs

While we can list known difficult situations like loss of job, bereavement, addictions, break ups, chronic illness, trauma and such, all of which could benefit from counselling, fact is that everyday life also has issues which result in consistent disappointment and pain.

Experience has shown that it is less than ten percent of issues which fall into those specific categories. More often than not anxiety or unhappiness arises from existing spaces, relationships, work, health or such other issues.

Counselling helps in any situations that might be causing anxiety or unhappiness on a continuing, or periodic basis. A nagging worry or anxiety that won’t let you fully focus on the other facets of life, interferes with your productivity, disturbs your relationships or won’t let you easily connect to the joyful things in life.

‘Life is 10% what you experience and 90% how you respond to it’

Understanding ourselves is key to handling a lot of our situations, to rationalizing and dealing with our own thoughts and feelings. Counselling enables a deeper understanding of our own self.

The first step is a safe and confidential space where we can be completely ourselves. An objective and non judgemental space which welcomes and accepts you as you are.

While counsellors may not give you a checklist of things to do to feel better, or directive advice, what they will do is help you understand your situation better, uncover your own insights, provide you with the tools which help handle or resolve issues on your own.

Through the diverse approaches to counselling, some of the objectives that are explicitly or implicitly looked at are:

Insight: The identification and understanding of the source of emotional difficulties, leading to an increased capacity to rationalize and handle feelings and actions.

Self Awareness: Becoming more aware of deeper thoughts and feelings that have been blocked off or denied, becoming aware of perceptions and interpretations of self and others, and thus developing a more accurate sense of self.

Self Acceptance: The development of a positive attitude towards self, marked by an ability to acknowledge areas of experience that had been the subject of self criticism or rejection.

Relating to others: Becoming better able to form and maintain meaningful and satisfying relationships with other people, within family, workplace or friends.

Empowerment: Working on awareness, and knowledge and skills that enable taking greater control of your own life.

While every client will quite obviously not be looking at all of these objectives, any counselling approach would be flexible enough to make it possible for the client to use the therapeutic relationship as an arena for exploring whatever dimension of life is most relevant to their well being at that point of time.

If you’re considering taking counselling for the first time, it’s understandable that you might be a little anxious about the experience. Making the decision to get help and address the issue you are facing is an important first step and is to be commended.

A counselling space is characterized by the presence of a number of features that are not readily available in everyday life:

A space to speak: This is a place where the person can talk of their innermost feelings, where they are given every encouragement to give voice to facets of their experience that may have previously not been expressed, in their own time and their own way, including identifying and expressing of feeling and emotion.

Respect for Difference: Non judgemental hearing is an intrinsic feature of counselling. The counsellor sets aside, as far as they are able, their own position or opinion on the issues brought in by the client, in order to focus on enabling the client to articulate and act on his or her own personal values and desires.

Confidentiality: Whatever is discussed is held in complete confidentiality; the counsellor undertakes to refrain from disclosing any part of what they have heard or learned from the client to any other person, known or unknown to the client, even in passing reference.

Counsellors are as human, and as vulnerable as anybody else. ​They are however highly trained in human psychology and behavior, also, having gone through extensive self development work themselves, they are equipped to understand and navigate complex emotional and relational spaces. As counsellors they are here offering a ‘helping’ relationship.

• Counsellors generally don’t give advice: There’s enough and more of that among family and friends.
• Counsellors are trained to understand emotional distress and the process of emotional healing.
• Counsellors are willing and able to face very strong emotions.
• Counsellors are non judgemental and empathic listeners, while also facilitating confrontation and change in alignment with the client’s values and needs.

While I offer ‘in person’ sessions in Hyderabad, for those not in Hyderabad, or even as a preference if in Hyderabad, we could do sessions online through Skype or Hangouts.

That said, especially so for those with access, it is recommended that atleast the first two sessions be ‘in person’.

The reason this question is here is because Google generates over fourteen million responses to it, suggesting it’s a common concern for people seeking counselling.

So what is the answer?

It’s the relationship that counts. Available research strongly suggests that it is the quality of the connection between client and counsellor that has the strongest influence on whether counselling is successful. The level of trust, quality of the rapport and the emotional connection are the critical factors and these appear to transcend gender. What that means is that you have to be comfortable, safe and feel understood and respected by the person you will sit in a room with at least once a week for a considerable time, whether it is a woman or a man.

The number of sessions needed is person and issue dependent, and can be a decision that you take along with the counsellor. It is also possible that it be kept open ended and decided as the sessions progress.

Experience has however shown that short term therapy typically goes on for anything between six to twelve sessions.

Fees per session:

Individual session : Weekdays, 10 am to 5 pm - Rs.2500 per session

Weekends & Weekdays before 10 am or after 5 pm - Rs.2800 per session

Couple and family sessions: Rs.3800 per session

Sessions with clients outside of India:

Weekdays Rs.3500 per session

Weekends Rs.4000 per session

Couple and family sessions: Rs.5000 per session

The sessions are held in a safe, private space where the client and counsellor are not overheard or interrupted. These conditions would be the same, at counsellor and clients end for online sessions as well.