What You Ought To Know About Therapist Counselors

There is a normal school of thought that says we need a therapist, counselor or coach to help us work through difficult situations, painful experiences, and negative emotions. Without another living person acting as a sounding board, confidante or adviser, this school of thought suggests, we will never be able to get out of the minefield that our negative thoughts, feelings and memories often are.

Is this true? Apparently not. We need to expand our thinking about what we really need once we are processing painful experiences and negative emotions. The presence of a therapist or coach might not be necessary.

People who process negative life experiences through writing or speaking about them (definitely not with a therapist or coach) describe long-term improved life satisfaction, mental health and physical health. The actions of writing and talking supply a conduit which leads to the release of painful experiences and feelings.

Here's what studies at the University of California and Duke University Medical Center and also the Clinical Psychology Review have to say about what we really need once we are operating through painful experiences and negative emotions:

Writing and talking require organisation and structure, which allow people to let go and move past their problems

For people suffering from minor psychological complaints, writing therapy and self-talk therapy (for example talking into a tape recorder) produces positive changes comparable to those produced by short term psychotherapy.

The positive effects of writing and self-talk therapy services include decreased visits to doctors, decreased job absenteeism; and increased coping strategies and improved physical conditions including immune function

It is not simply the writing and speaking about life events that appears to make the difference - it really is the self-reflection on the feelings and the insights that seems to make the shift: what are my feelings connected with this event and what do I now understand or realise about it? Writing and talking about those elements provides a structure and organisation to troubling events that may lead to a self-identified solution. - Clinical Psychology Review

Writing is tremendously cost effective, allows people to confront traumas and problems at their own rate, and encourages them to devise their very own meaning and solutions to their problems. Many people, perhaps most, will be able to guide their own therapy