When we come into counselling or therapy, for whatever reason, we are engaging upon a course of action that can change our lives for the better in untold ways. Counselling and therapy can give us most wonderful and life improving experiences and through counselling and therapy we may overcome personal or interpersonal problems, lose phobias and other anxiety disorders and benefit in a myriad of other ways, but all of this can only happen if we (as clients) genuinely take part in the counselling or therapeutic process.

Skilled counsellors and therapists are adaptable and trained both to educate the client in how to get the most from therapy and to work around, utilize and to generally overcome any client resistance problems that may occur, but the more time that they have to spend doing this the more time is lost from the productive forwards developments that may occur in each counselling or therapy session.

Clients may sometimes suffer from naturally occurring resistance, originating in deep seated subconscious ideas or from as yet unconscious presuppositions and these effects are normal and expected by counsellors and therapists, but there are other examples of client failure to make the most out of counselling and therapy which exist fully within the client's realm of conscious choice and which can prevent the client getting what they want out of the sessions. Quite simply, there are many people who devote their time and money to pay for counselling or therapy, but rather than being an effective client who gets the most out of therapy they actually choose to approach counselling or therapy in a way that slows or stifles their healing and their forwards growth.

Every counsellor can tell you that there are clients who come into counselling for several sessions, yet during that time they never chose to open up to the counsellor and discuss things in a frank and genuine way with them and every cognitive behavioural therapist can tell you that homework activities are an essential keystone of most approaches, but there are clients who will happily discuss and choose homework each week, yet the very next session they will come back having done little or nothing towards it.

At the same time every hypnotherapist can tell you that although they thoroughly precondition clients of the fact that hypnotherapy requires the client to give their full and frank participation in accordance with the hypnotherapeutic instructions, yet at the same time there are many people who will pay money to go to a hypnotherapist and then instead of following the therapeutic instructions they are given they behave in ways that lessen or stifle their therapy. What has usually led to such a situation is that when the client was asked whether they had any concerns or queries about hypnosis that they would like the therapist to explain they said no, when in fact they did have but were to shy or proud to ask, leaving leaving these unexplained questions in their mind leading to baseless fears and contra-therapeutic resistance.

Happily, if you are a client or a potential client then the fact that you are reading this may indeed help you to avoid these common pitfalls and to make the most out of counselling or therapy. Below are five simple ways that you or I may get the best out of counselling and therapy and by following them we may become efficient and effective clients.

1. Remember to come to therapy sessions with an open mind and the intention of benefiting from them and if you have agreed to do homework get it done - even if you do not feel like it, because it is purely for your genuine benefit. If you are dedicated to benefiting from counselling/therapy then this is a great force that promotes therapeutic improvement and if you are open minded then you can benefit from counselling insights and learn things from the counsellor/therapist.
2. Remember to be honest and open with your counsellor/therapist. There may sometimes be things that you reasonably do not want to tell them and this is your right, but for general issues and particularly in relation to your presenting problem/s openness and honesty are crucial.
3. Remember that just as you know things that the counsellor/therapist does not, they also know things that you do not - particularly about counselling/therapy. Unless you are a counsellor/therapist who has studied the same subjects as the professional person that you are going to never assume that you understand the reason they are using a particular approach and the theory and research supporting it (unless they have educated you of this).
4. Remember that if you have any grievance or negative feelings for the counsellor that you should tell them, as it is much better for therapeutic progress if these things come out into the open and your counsellor is unlikely to mind. You may feel shy about discussing such feelings, but it is better to get them out in the open, even if it means that after discussing them you choose to go to another counsellor, because it is far more likely that when they have been discussed openly they will disappear.
5. Remember that if you have any questions, worries or queries about the counselling/therapy process or any particular part of it then discuss them with the counsellor/therapist. This is particularly true in relation to homework in CBT and following the therapeutic instructions during hypnotic work in hypnotherapy.

How many talking therapists does it take to change a light bulb?

Only one, but the bulb has to want to change!