Why would anybody need counselling?

I have to admit, this question puzzles me! Why would anybody ask? We don’t usually question the need for seeing a physiotherapist, a GP, a dietician, or a dentist. What’s different about our mind, our psychological fitness?

We don’t get any training in psychology in high school, not even at university unless we decide to specialize in psychology. We are expected, however, to know how to be in a relationship, how to raise a child, how to live a happy and fulfilling life. Why?

Just recently, shortly after a Valentine Day, I heard an interesting conversation on the radio about the societal expectations. The thing was mostly about the expectations around a relationship, but in my mind it could apply to anything.

This is my summary of the conversation:
“We, as a society, know exactly how a “normal relationship” and “love” should look like. We learned it from our parents, grandparents, family systems, books, stories, even songs and movies. We are not willing to accept easily any models that are different from those learned previously. Everything outside of our pre-learned model is abnormal, scary, even dangerous. It takes a very long time for our views to change. First, we need to change the societal view of what is normal and what is not. Not long ago love between same sex individuals, for example, was considered abnormal; it now slowly changes and more and more people see it as another fact of life, not a deviancy. Still, it will take many more years until it will be accepted everywhere and by everybody.
What is considered “abnormal” now could be seen differently in 20 years. However, before it happens the societal narrative has to change first. We need good examples, good stories to back the change up and see the benefits of it.”

I guess this “knowing” how things should look like could be a reason for the question: “why would anybody need counselling”. We, society, know what happiness, achievement, love, relationship or failure are. There is something suspicious in admitting that in fact, you don’t know, that you have some questions, want to learn more… It makes you look weird, maybe even “abnormal”, and nobody wants to look “abnormal”.

It is much easier to vent to a friend at the coffee shop, complain that life sucks, your husband doesn’t live up to your expectations, and stress is killing you than go to a specialist and try to change things around. Venting is socially acceptable, even expected, going to a counsellor – not so much.

Things are changing, I know. We talk more and more about mental issues, depression, loneliness. It will take a while, I guess, before the narrative changes and we’ll have good “therapy changed my life” stories circulating around and hitting the mainstream. In the meantime, it is still something we don’t like to talk about with friends or brag about at the party. In the meantime, we still insist that therapy is for people who have problems, who are unbalanced, maladjusted; not for “regular folks”.
By Eva Sadowski