FAQ's

1. Why would I attend group counseling?
2. What is the difference between therapy and counseling?
3. What is bibliotherapy?
4. How does counseling work?

Why would I attend group counseling?

Groups allow you to be less isolated as you work on your issues and helps you to realize you're not alone in your struggles. Especially for children, who tend to learn well from the peers, the notion of multiple perspectives on issues and how you are seen by others is very helpful.

Groups provide a safe environment in which you can experiment with new behaviors, improve communication skills, and receive feedback from others with similar concerns and interests.

What is the difference between therapy and counseling?

Each state has different requirements for licensing and there are many kinds of assistance available. Some licenses contain the word "therapist," some use "counselor," and others do not have either of those words. Some view "counseling" as a limited, direction-oriented, problem solving approach, while "therapy" works more in depth understanding of what is underlies behavior. However, it might often be difficult to distinguish between counseling and therapy. The theoretical orientation behind each therapist's work guide that person's style of assistance and is more dependent upon the person than her title.

What is bibliotherapy?

The idea of healing through books is not a new one--it can be traced far back in history. Bibliotherapy can be defined as the use of books to help people solve problems. A more precise definition is that bibliotherapy is a tool for structuring interaction between a therapist and a client based on mutual sharing of literature.

Bibliotherapeutic intervention may be utilized for many reasons to: (1) develop an individual's self-concept; (2) increase an understanding of human behavior or motivation; (3) foster an honest self-appraisal; (4) provide a way for a person to find interests outside of self; (5) relieve emotional or mental pressure; (6) to show an individual that he or she is not alone with such a problem; (7) show an individual there is more than one solution to a problem; (8) help discuss a problem more freely; and (9) help plan a constructive plan of action to solve a problem.

My favorite bibliotherapy...

How does counseling work?

Counseling works by giving you the chance to be heard. Your counselor will give you all the time you need to talk, sob, shout or just think. It's an opportunity to look at the problem in a different way with someone who'll respect and encourage your opinions and decisions.

In an article published by Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, clients of marriage and family counselors reported on their experience with counseling. The findings indicated that marriage and family counselors treated a wide range of issues in relatively short-term fashion and client satisfaction and functional improvement are quite high.

For many, the solution is right under their noses - it just takes someone objective to help see what it is.

It's difficult to measure how effective counseling is, but it's a service that's rapidly growing as more and more people discover the benefits. If you haven't considered counseling before, and you feel life’s problems are having an impact on you, your relationships and on important parts of your life, you might consider counseling to learn how to handle it better.