Why you need to feel safe in the therapy room

Getting feedback from a client recently reminded me of something that sits at the heart of how I work:

That healing happens in relationship.

You might imagine counselling as a place where you go to talk about your problems, understand why you feel the way you do, and hopefully learn to cope differently.

And of course, those things are all a big part of it.

But I believe something else is crucially important too.

Feeling safe enough to be yourself

For counselling to be really beneficial, you need to feel able to bring the parts of yourself that aren't always so easy to share.

That might be the thoughts you worry sound unreasonable. The feelings you think you should have got over by now. The anger, anxiety, shame or sadness you'd rather nobody else saw.

Many of us become very good at editing ourselves around other people. I know a lot of my clients have. I often hear “This might sound crazy, but …”.

We worry about being judged, being too much, upsetting someone or saying the wrong thing.

Perhaps you've learnt to keep the peace, appear completely capable, put other people's needs first or simply say, "I'm fine."

And those ways of being with other people don't necessarily disappear just because we walk into a counselling room.

They can come into the room too.

Why the relationship matters

Many of the difficulties we experience as adults have been shaped, at least partly, through our experiences with other people.

Perhaps you learnt that your feelings weren't always welcome as a child, so you kept them to yourself. That asking for what you needed risked rejection or criticism. Or that being vulnerable didn't always feel safe.

Those experiences can shape the way we see ourselves and relate to others, often without us consciously realising it.

And sometimes those patterns show up in counselling too.

In fact, I hope that they do, because then we can work with them.

You might apologise when you become emotional, worry that you're talking too much, assume I'm disappointed in you, or find it difficult to disagree with me.

I am always pleased when that happens, as I see these things as an opportunity to get curious together.

Because what happens within the counselling relationship can sometimes help us understand what happens in relationships outside it.

Somewhere you don't have to pretend

Most people don’t feel completely comfortable from the first session. It takes time for trust to develop, particularly if trusting people hasn't always felt safe in the past.

My hope is that, over time, counselling becomes somewhere you don't have to perform, protect other people's feelings or pretend you're coping better than you are.

I hope it becomes somewhere you can gradually be more yourself.

As that’s when we can begin to understand together what's happening beneath the coping mechanisms.

I truly believe that experiencing a relationship in which you can be yourself and still feel accepted is key to healing.

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