COVID-19 will make counselling more important to people.
Everyone must have experienced counselling with counsellors during the period under study in the school or working time in the workplace to speak out their issues and troubles. On the surface, the process of counselling looks simple and easy. The way to counsel patients used by professional counsellors and untrained people is completely different. The reason is professional counsellor possesses of specialized knowledge to deal with their patients. Unlike untrained people, they just make a judgement based on their institution without any counselling skills and techniques.
Along with the growth of age, the emotional problem might be occurred due to external factors such as environment, stress and several things that happened around us. Without stabling our emotional well, our mental health will be influenced and hence causing mental illness. Counselling may help us to take a load off our mind based on several basic counselling skills such as listening, empathy, genuineness, asking questions, etc.
In 2020, the challenge faced by the world is the COVID-19 pandemic which critically destroyed the people’s quality of life. This pandemic leads to job loss and unemployment stress on many people. Hence, it makes the cases of suicide attempt become more and more from the stress. What’s more terrible is that the depression on those around you is unable to be perceived, they just hide behind a false mask. It is a pity that they missed counselling to help them escape from the depression and stress. Counselling should be provided for all the victims so that they can be rescued from negative emotions or suicide ideation.
What is counselling?
There are several definitions of “counselling” defined by different persons. According to the American Counselling Association (ACA), counselling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education and career goals. Counselling is applied by counsellors who are professional and trained in helping others to find out the root cause of the problem, guide them in how to deal with and overcome their problems and find out their life goals. However, counselling is not giving advice based on judgement, getting emotionally involved with the patients, and looking at a patient’s problems from the counsellor’s perspective and their own value system.
Counselling can be conducted in various ways through face to face, group, over the phone, email and online. The counselling may be offered a single session of counselling, a short course of sessions over a few weeks or months, or a longer course that lasts for several months or years.
Why counselling is very important for us?
Counselling is important especially for those who have physical, emotional and mental health issues by helping them to enhance their sense of well-being, mitigate our feelings of distress and resolve crises. Counselling is not only beneficial for those who specifically need it to treat their issues, but also for everyone. Thus, why counselling is essential for humans?
1.Speaking out our mind and feeling
Although there are relatives and friends around us, we may not willing to speak out our thoughts and feelings that make us feel annoyed and suffering. The longer the time we hide something in our minds, the more and more uncomfortable we feel. Counselling allows us to speak our truth without feeling as though we are dumping a huge burden on someone.
2.Improving our mental health
Everyone has their own stress and trouble due to different personal issues such as academic, job performance, money matters and family relationship problems. It may influence their everyday life and mental health. In the course of time, mental illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder may happen on them. Hence, counselling can help to mitigate our stress through certain approaches so that we can feel empowered and encouraged. Also, counselling can help us to let go of the past and start over without feeling guilty.
3.Breaking out of clinical depression
Breaking out of clinical depression by ourselves is not as simple as ABC without any guidance and counselling. Sometimes we may not able to deal with depression or sadness by ourselves. Even we do what we like, it is still unable to be completely eliminated. Hence, the counsellors will try to provide us with guidance so that we can move forward in our lives and get back on our feet. Therefore, our life will be getting better.
Some nursing homes may provide counselling services for patients who are depressed or anxious. Also, there are 5 best private counselling centres in Klang Valley for anyone which include young people, middle-aged and the elderly to look for counselling services, in no particular order. You are advised to make an appointment with the counselling centre if you are interested in it. Walking-in might be not available for some counselling centres.