Individual Counselling at InnerSight

When to seek individual counselling

You could benefit from individual counselling in a variety of scenarios, such as:

• You are feeling 'stuck'. Life is good generally but you feel you can be so much more, more 'you'
• You are doing alright but there are certain conflicts and issues that bother you
• You notice certain things about yourself and your behaviour that you can't understand or don't like, or say 'This is just not me or who I want to be.'
• You are going through some difficulty that you cannot get help from your usual sources. You think they could be biased/ judgmental or you feel they won't understand
• You find yourself anxious and are finding it hard to understand why or how you can manage it
• You are having challenges with some relationships at work or outside, and want to understand how you could help yourself
• You discover something about yourself and it distresses you
• You have gone through some loss and are finding it hard to bounce back

What is Individual Counselling 

Individual counselling is a personal, one-to-one counselling space for a person to interact with the counsellor to explore and address personal concerns.  It is a partnership where the counsellor works with the client to help the client in their journey to understand themselves better and cope with whatever challenges they are going through.

We use the term "Individual Counselling" as an umbrella term to cover  other possible terminology such as "Personal Counselling", "1-on-1 Counselling" etc.

What happens in Individual Counselling

Individual counselling starts with a one-hour assessment session where the focus is on establishing a clear understanding of the counselling process, understanding the client background and discussing the particular concerns and immediate triggers that the client wishes to explore. Once there is clarity on what is to be addressed and there is a rapport between the counsellor and client, both discuss how they could work on the matter, including frequency of sessions & timings. 

Counselling in general is a talking therapy - that is, it is in the conversation that the client often finds a different perspective or is able to find their new answers or reconnect with themselves more fully. Occasionally, the counsellor may use different therapeutic tools in counselling, including art or play forms. There may also be homework for the client to think through or work on between sessions.  The tools used will really depend on the counselling situation and the counsellor will explain to the client the objective of any particular tool. 

Typically, counselling sessions are scheduled once a week and the counsellor and client decide mutually how many sessions might be needed, and when they might check back on progress, closure etc. On an average, counselling relationships can last anywhere from 2-20 sessions, and occasionally, it might be longer, depending on the nature of the issue being addressed. 

What are the outcomes of personal counselling

We find that individuals who go through 1-1 counselling with us generally experience relief and release in being able to talk to someone in confidence about their challenges, and the counselling experience often helps them see things from different perspectives and connect to many other resources of theirs . It increases awareness of one's own feelings, thoughts and behaviours, leading to better informed choices. Where the client is going through some inevitable pain, such as with losses/ grief, counselling has been shown to reduce or make the suffering more bearable. 

In general, counselling benefits the individual by bringing the person to better self-awareness and helping the client feel more connected to a fuller sense of self.