Counsellors also tend to provide a long list of issues that they can help you with. I think all of this is of limited help. The average client is unlikely to say that I want Transactional Analysis rather than Gestalt based on some significant knowledge or experience of these. CBT is perhaps the most likely model that they may know something about but this is moving on to ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy). As a client I gave very little attention to the specific methods my counsellor used. Underlying all of this which seldom gets a mention are questions like,
- Who is this counsellor?
- What is their life experience?
- What are they like as a person?
- What is their motivation for being a counsellor?
- Are they really non-judgemental?
- Do they really put their own issues outside the counselling room?
And most importantly,
What is the quality of their relationships with clients? This is most important since all the research evidence shows that the quality of the relationship is more important to client outcomes than any specific model of counselling.
