Trust

People come to counselling needing support. Often they look to the counsellor to provide explanations or reasons why they may be feeling like they do.  

However, psychological disturbance is complex. Attributing this cause to that effect is often too simplistic. Reasons why are based on some belief which may or may not be accurate. And then there is the question: "OK, now I know this, what next?"

I am reluctant to offer reasons-why as a counsellor. If I succumb to demands from the client to offer (my) reasons for the way they are feeling, I may be colluding in a familiar pattern through which the client has learned not to trust in their own abilities.  

If I am tempted to offer explanations, the client may come away thinking they have got what they needed, but they may simply be replacing one belief with another, leaving the root of the disturbance untouched. At worst, my explaining to/for the client may be  disempowering.  

One of the aims of Gestalt counselling is to foster agency; to help clients identify how they have solved their own problems in the past and how they continue to do so, thus restoring faith in their own abilities. As the client and counsellor begin to trust in themselves, in each other, and in the counselling process, the need for counsellor explanation recedes, leaving space for deeper awareness to emerge.