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Counselling in Wokingham – Stuck?

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Paul Cockayne – 07791 970406paulcockayne3@gmail.com

Welcome to my counselling blog. You can find more information about me by clicking one of the links at the top of this page

I enjoy crossword puzzles, but sometimes of course, I get stuck. I find that I just can’t see the solution to a particular clue. But very often it seems to happen that if I put the newspaper down, and go and do something completely different, I can solve that difficult clue quite easily when I come back to it an hour or two later.

I used to work in IT. Sometimes, in that environment, technical people would find themselves stuck with a program that wouldn’t work or with a hardware problem they couldn’t diagnose. I often found that, if they tried to explain the problem to me (even knowing that I lacked the technical know-how to solve it), they would suddenly see the answer – it would just flash into their head.

In both cases, people are stuck, unable to see a way forward. In both cases, the solution becomes obvious when they look at their problem differently. In the first case, it’s as if I have cleared my head of preconceptions and can look at the crossword clue afresh. In the second case, the act of verbalising the problem seems to enable the techie to see it in a new light.

People often come to counselling because they are stuck. They perhaps feel trapped in a situation, in a relationship or in a job and can see no way out – they have no choices. Or maybe they are struggling with repeating patterns – they keep losing their job, they can’t seem to maintain a relationship, they repeatedly fail in their attempts to give up smoking or keep to a diet.

Couples, too, can be very stuck with a particular issue. They may have tried to talk about it many times but have ended hitting the same brick wall every time – or maybe they find that they just argue round and round in circles.

As with the crossword puzzle or the IT problem, they key to getting unstuck can be about looking at things differently, and counselling can help with that. The simple fact that you are sitting in a different room, physically removed from your normal environment, can clear your head and give you a new way to look at things. The act of describing your problem to a counsellor, of verbalising it, can help you to see it differently. In telling someone else your story, you are giving it a different perspective and that can help you to approach things afresh.

For couples too, that repeating conversation can be different with a third person in the room – that vicious circle you are stuck in can be broken. You can start to hear your partner better, to understand their point of view, to see things from their perspective.

Now, back to the crossword, 17 across, Therapy unclogs line unexpectedly (11)


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