I’ve been seeing Nancy as my counselor for about 5 years and after we talked about my taking a break from counseling, I ended up writing this: and giving her permission to share it.
Things I love and am so grateful for about my therapist, Nancy:
- She knows me like no other person does, even better than myself.
- She can pinpoint exactly what is on my mind – even when I don’t know how to express it – and she help me work through the issues.
- She listens like none other, and always gives me her full undivided attention, challenging me to work through my issues in a caring way to grow out of my comfort zone and face my fears–which have often paralyzed me from moving forward before counseling.
- She calls me out on my behaviors all of the time and I admit, at times, push my buttons – but I trust her caring like no other.
- She doesn’t cater to my whining or regressing child-part and she has me stand up or take a ‘time-out’ if I have regressed.
- She encourages me to journal and take my counseling out into my daily life when I leave her session.
- She has encouraged my getting involved in support group for co-dependency for which I never knew existed, which has helped me support my growing recovery (from dysfunctional family issues) and learning to stay in the present and notice my own needs.
- She has suggested I make new recovery friends, and has encouraged me to make the effort when I’d been hesitant to do so.
- She doesn’t push me to do anything, but gives me the choice to do so.
- She accepts me for who I am and doesn’t have an agenda to “fix” me, but supports me shedding all that is not the real me – which, over the years has been significant and allowed me to take steps toward my own fulfillment that I never would have been able to before counseling.
- She has lead me to a wonderful Psychiatrist who has helped improve my life as far as getting me on medicine that allows me to live a more functional life and to grow as a human being.
- She offers additional support in the form of a community–a supportive once-a-month Exploring Reality Dialogues Community–a safe space where vulnerable feelings can be shared and also learn how other people who are working on being more real are using their ‘tools’ — that has helped me a lot with my confidence and learning how to open up and be less afraid to be myself in front of others.
- She offers a Constellation Circle, once a month– an unusual method for seeing issues that have I’ve known about for years but have kept me stuck, and in the safety of a supportive, caring group of people… offers a unique way of visually seeing new possibilities that can help me. And it also helps me seeing that I’m not ‘alone’.
- She has opened my mind to explore my beliefs and my conditioning that I have learned as a young child and never gave any thought about.
- She has encourages me to set boundaries with my family and has taught me how to see when I become enmeshed with my family.
- She has helped me to see when I spill too much information on to others, and helped me learning to set boundaries and say ‘No’ and feeling less guilt.
- She does not beat around the bush in any way, and says things like they are, and helps me seek the truth in all things.
- She is devoted to helping me become my true nature, and seems to really care that I succeed. I don’t feel like I’m just the next client.
- She has extensive knowledge on cognitive behaviors and how thinking errors can affect all aspects of my life. She helps to see how my thoughts that do not support my inner growth and gives me tools on how to thought correct.
- She helps me work on connecting with and healing my inner child, and taught me how to comfort and nurture my inner child.
- She has amazing counseling resources to turn to rather then just talking ‘about’ my problems each week: such as books that we discuss together that offer valuable insights for healthy recovery; or offers me opportunities to do rock constellations using stones on the floor that helps me see effects from my past offering a method for seeing difficult issues and their possible solutions more clearly.
- She remembers what was shared in last session so there’s continuity, and helps me see how my history affects me and how I can move forward.
- I can feel how she cares about her clients succeeding in all aspects of their life and how much she has helped save my life, emotionally, in so many ways, words can’t explain because I have sought the truth in my sessions and getting unstuck from all the baggage I came in with.