Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog which, as ever, marks the end of an extremely busy first term of the school year. With so much extra happening in school and perhaps at home too, this time of year can be a challenge for some of us. Many of us enjoy winter and Christmas, and some of us don’t – and that’s ok. We are all different. We have different life situations, experiences, likes and dislikes and I think that, to get the most out of times like holidays and Christmas, it’s important to be honest with ourselves about what works for us, what doesn’t, what we enjoy and what we don’t. In my experience, even the situations that we find the most difficult can somehow be a little easier to face if we’ve accepted that they might not be easy, so that we can feel more emotionally prepared for that possibility.

The statements above are the focus areas for PSHE and Wellbeing learning and support in school. Carrying on with the notion that we are all individuals, facing distinct challenges and each experiencing things from our own unique perspective, the subject of self-awareness – getting to know and understand ourselves – really feels to me to be at the very core of wellbeing. When people come along to counselling, they are often taking the very first step explicitly towards developing self awareness. Even if they’re not aware of it at the time.

‘I’m not sure what I’m here for’ or ‘I don’t really know what to say’ or ‘Others might need this more than me.’
These are very often the first things that people say in their first counselling session. There can be so many feelings and thoughts going on. It can feel scary. It can feel weird. People might feel vulnerable, nervous, emotional, uncomfortable. Too visible. Intimidated. Defensive. Annoyed. Hopeful. Relieved.

All of these are ok – natural, understandable, and welcome. Everything is welcome.

The counselling room in the Wellbeing Centre has many resources to use – things to play with, create, and do, so it’s not always all about the talking. Counselling is a collaboration, where two people share time and space and where the counsellor follows someone’s thoughts, actions and activities and stays by their side, whatever happens. It’s a counsellor’s role to work towards breaking down any hierarchy or barriers, and to establish boundaries that help someone to feel safe. It’s a counsellor’s role to be predictable, somebody to trust and rely on.

The American Psychological Society are exploring the science behind why therapeutic conversations are so powerful, and have found that people’s wellbeing is determined in large part by the quality of their social relationships, which rely so heavily on the conversations that we have with each other. And that we can tend to avoid some of the most potentially deep, fulfilling conversations – because we predict that they will be more awkward than they actually are. The research has shown that when people are willing to take the risk to have deeper conversations about the more difficult, ‘awkward’ topics, they lead to feeling less awkward, more connected and happier.

The things that can seem to make conversations feel bad, or as if they’re going wrong, can often depend on the qualities of our listener. Things like mismatched goals, too many questions, the wrong questions, being interrupted, unwelcome advice. In counselling, the counsellor will be working so hard to follow your narrative closely and to understand as fully as they can, that the experience of being listened to is likely to be a very different one to that of an everyday conversation. What if you want to ask the counsellor questions? That’s fine. Ask away. A counsellor will always be honest with their responses – and if they don’t know or don’t have an answer, they’ll say so. They might also then be interested in hearing what’s brought that question into your mind – and so the collaboration continues.

What can happen in counselling, is that people can talk things through in an in-depth, focused way, and maybe spot things that they didn’t see before. Or maybe their counsellor will spot things. Like, perhaps, a tendency to react a certain way at tricky times , or maybe a difficulty around a certain situation. Once we’ve spotted these things, it can feel far easier to feel prepared for those feelings if they happen again, to know why they’re happening and learn what to do to help ourselves get through them. Here’s a simple example:

‘I was really mean towards a friend, and now they’re upset with me. I’m worried they won’t want to spend time together later. I’ve probably ruined our friendship. Bad day.

What was going on there? Let’s take a look. I’d slept in, everything was feeling late and disorganised. I was quite stressed and worried about being late, and that’s what made me cross and grumpy. Nothing to do with my friend at all. Even though it’s awkward and a bit scary, I’ll go and try to explain, and apologise. Everything’s fine again, my friend understood, and appreciated me apologising. And if I’m late again, next time I’ll know that I might feel snappy and short tempered because I’m a bit anxious. I’ll try to recognise it.’

I think we’re learning things about ourselves and developing self awareness, all of the time. Throughout our lives. We’re experiencing, growing, changing and moving forwards every day, and our feelings and responses to things can change and evolve too. So when people arrive at counselling it’s not as if, once they finish, they’re ‘sorted’ or that the work has ended once they leave. It’s more that, after some counselling sessions, they hopefully feel better in touch with themselves, more in charge of their own thoughts and feelings, and more able to do more of the self-awareness ‘work’ by themselves. Because they risked having the conversation.

I’ll finish here, by wishing you a lovely break. Thank you for reading – and remember, if you’ve got something on your mind that’s getting in the way of you feeling ok, and you want to try talking it through, I’m here to help. Email me at l.arthur@nor.gdst.net

Lizzie Arthur, School Counsellor

If you need support over the Christmas holiday, don’t forget the services below, all of which are free to access. 

Kooth is a monitored, safe and anonymous service where you can access online counselling with qualified professionals.

Chat Health Norfolk is a secure NHS approved text messaging service. All Norfolk young people aged 11 – 19 can text 07480 635060 to start a conversation with a trained health professional.

SHOUT  is free, 24/7 mental health support, via text. Just text ‘SHOUT’ to 85258.

Bereavement Support Group – this happens monthly, in the Health and Wellbeing Centre. Pop in to find out more.

If you’re in need of urgent help, the following agencies are good places to turn:

Childline (0800 1111)

Samaritans (116 123)

NHS 111 (111)