How can u make sure that you are not living for counselling?

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I am deeply thankful for access to mental health services which float my boat including counselling. I would like to say though how I struggle to think that I could go long without it and am starting to think to an extent that I lapse into certain behavioral patterns (ex. an addiction) in order to have something more to talk about. I would like to hear out others on this.

Note: I feel way tempted to add more nuance to this but that is the crux of the matter to me.

Living [i]for[/i] counsuling?

Are you saying that counsuling itself is a type of addiction for you?

Or are you saying that you just wonder how long you could go with out counsuling(ie that you don't feel independent yet from help)?

The ultimate goal of counseling and therapy should be: getting to the point where you don't need counseling any more.

In a loose sense----like not needing antibiotics any more because your bacterial infection was cured. Obviously, though, it isn't that simple.

I have found that some therapists believe in "lifelong" therapy for various reasons. Some monetary, some philosophical. I believe, on the other hand, that therapy should have some resolution, some point where it "ends."

I am one who believes that one should not, necessarily, rely on therapists too much. There are many people who truly need therapists, and should rely on them. But I believe a good therapist believes in tangible, obvious progress, and also believes that progressively less reliance on them on the part of clients is a good thing.

I don't believe they should rely on them totally for their happiness. I believe people should also seek to help themselves out, and to allow themselves to make themselves happy on their own, perhaps with the assistance of the therapist.

Discuss this with your counsellor, and try to find friends to talk to instead.

Finding friends that one is close enough to to be able to talk about this kind of stuff is really, really hard. Plus, even if you do manage to find such a friend, it also means that you would presumably have to be capable of being on the listening end as well, which is also really, really hard.

^^ Try going to meetings for mutual assistance. I'd start with Adult Children Anonymous. For my first three meetings, I only listened, amazed at how open people could be. After a few years, I was comfortable enough to try a word prank, and got as good a laugh as any professional.

Yes, I do worry that might be possible



Interesting how you say that to someone who not only finds counselling fortunately financially feasible but also habitually *practiced ‘confession’* while practicing Catholicism..I have occasionally pondered and expressed how me engaging with mental health services might be an 'offshoot' of having done that practice which satisfied me more for being where I can be more authentic rather than the Catholicism which I disengaged from for several reasons not the least
because of how guilt is like for as well, the painful turbulence of being in a non-public school etc.

I would like to say how when it comes to counselling it usually can be 'summarized' as being about these ’reoccuring’ factors..

--holding a job/moving out/‘adulting’ ordeals

--pondering on issues related to (potential) ‘post-friendship’/‘romantic’ relationships

--thorny issue of the day: whether based on an experience or abstract pondering

--holding pornography consumption ‘at bay'

Such are the things which compel me to look forward to at least doing 'monthly updates' at a minimum, while not feeling too ashamed if something circumstantial like (like addiction) gets to me..

'Ideally' I would go to counselling once every 3 months..goodness knows how I don't have to feel ashamed if I don't meet that expectation .



Honestly, I would rather not. At least at this point--I think I have sort of brought this up before.



Second.

I have done everything to avoid counseling of this type. I always seemed to get the people who said, "You can't do this for (whatever reason)." I have done many of the things they said I'd never do, but there is a long list of things I still need to do.