Hate Therapy? Need Help?

Working recently with several personal development coaches on their articles and eBooks, it struck me that the world falls into two camps when it comes to anything perceived as 'Therapy'.

Loosely labelled, they are "Wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole" and "Love it, love you, love me."

My other half would sooner gouge out his eyes with a teaspoon than discuss his feelings with a stranger. I, on the other hand, blog quite happily about excruciating daily experiences and would not quail if someone in the queue at the bank asked me to talk in depth about my haemorrhoids. I live by the John Peel maxim - "If you don't want people to know about it, don't do it." Anything I have done, from giving birth to being held hostage in a library, is worth sharing, writing about and deriving entertainment or erudition from. (I am pretty sure than you should never end a sentence with 'from', but this is a blog, and I can do what I like here. So.)

But once you have attained a certain age, it is difficult to shake the notion that you should know what you are doing in life. So, going to counselling, therapy or any other form of personal coaching, is understandably less attractive, hinting , as it does, that you are struggling in some area.

For those of you reading this and considering marriage guidance or individual therapy, I get why you have trepidation. I get why you'd sooner stumble on getting stuff wrong and dealing with the fall out, rather than analyse your own navel-fluff. I get why you may even feel that you'll eventually work it all out on your own, rather than have to tell someone else, in a room with dead potplants and khaki sofas. But bear this in mind. It's like a Get Out of Jail Free card.

I went to Relate counselling unwillingly. If I couldn't work out my own relationship, when I knew it so well, how on earth could some young college-leaver tell me anything? The point is, she didn't have to. She sat opposite us making notes like a character in a bad Adam Sandler movie, and I despaired that she'd ever get my other half to do anything other than glower. But when I shut up for five minutes, she let the silence hang. She then asked simple, no-nonsense questions, and re-directed us whenever we veered on to emotional loops. She was the equivalent of Switzerland. Calm, bland and serving great coffee.

Hours later, I realised I'd learned more about us in that one session, than in several years of weekend arguments over how badly I pack the car. I heard how he talked to someone he wasn't angry at. I found out why what I did bothered him and he heard my real concerns that had got hidden in my torrent of words. I spotted the mean techniques I'd been employing to undermine him, when I thought they were just ways to empower me. It took the sting out of our circular arguments to hear them in context, and to know that everyone has them, like a nail-biting habit from childhood.

I'm not advocating everyone rush to the Yellow Pages and book in with a therapist now. But don't rule out the benefits until you've tried it. You can carry on being sniffy about self-help books afterwards. But you may have caught a glimpse of how everyone else sees you, and armed with that knowledge be able to navigate a less painful way forward for yourself and those who have to live with you.

And later on, when you're back at the point of no-return (probably yet another argument over the washing-up) you'll scoop this information out of thin air as your Get Out of Jail Free card. And be grateful you did it.