Schooldaze

I have to admit, when I left full-time education I thought that was it for homework. No more exams, no more essays, no more anything in my evenings that isn’t video games and horror movies. But, that’s not how it goes!

In all seriousness, sometimes when clients

start counselling they’re taken aback about the homework side of things.

'Homework? You’re joking, right? Surely I’m coming here to talk to you and that’s it?'

When I’m starting with a new client I make it clear that the sessions with your counsellor are only part of it, an important part, absolutely, but not the whole thing. Part of the commitment with CBT is that you’ll be doing some work yourself.

So what might you be asked to do?

It could be breathing exercises to help you calm down when you’re anxious. It might be reading through something that they think will be useful for you. It might be things like noticing what’s going on in your thoughts and in your body when something upsets you. It might be experiments where you try something to see if what happens is the same as you thought might happen.

It’ll all depend on what you’re coming to counselling for, but your counsellor will (or should) make sure that the task is the right fit for you and that it’s something you’ll have time to do between sessions when you’ll obviously have other commitments competing for your attention.

Generally speaking sessions typically involve introducing or practicing something that will then be worked on by the client between sessions, and the next session will pick up with how they got on and developing things further.

You can see then how challenging it can be if the work isn’t done, particularly when CBT is a time-limited therapy with an agreed number of sessions. Sometimes it can be dealt with during the new session, but that’s taking up time that might have been more effective doing something else.

An important part of CBT is learning new ways of doing things and it takes practice to get good at them and be in the best possible place at the end of therapy.

Think of it like going to the gym. A session with a personal trainer can get you so far, but you’ll see even more benefit if you practice between sessions.

If you would like to talk to me about working on your mental health, you can complete the online submission form or contact me directly at: mckellarCBT@gmail.com