Have you ever considered getting help for any of your mental strifes? If so, you may have considered counseling. However, there is both counseling and therapy. The difference has to do with understanding yourself and your patterns of thought, feelings, and behaviors. Although therapy and counseling are often used interchangeably, there are major differences.
What is counseling?
Counseling involves working with a mental health counselor or clinical mental health counselor. You may have a specific issue you need to work on, such as having trouble in your marriage or with stress. You may go to get help to learn how to improve things for your situation. You might also go to counseling can help you if you have difficulty managing stress and want guidance on tools you can use when you are stressed out. Usually, counseling focuses on a specific issue for a limited amount of time.
What is therapy?
Therapy can be more long-term and focuses on you as an individual. It can be about how you see yourself versus the world. It can also help you to change behaviors, or understand why you do what you do.
Therapy is commonly used when suffering from depression. You might work with a mental health therapist to explore how depression impacts your everyday life, and how to cope better with the feelings you have. Therapy occurs over a longer period of time than counseling.
Therapy can include counseling on specific issues. However, a counselor typically refers people to a therapist if they see any patterns or concerns that may get worse. In some cases, a therapist can be a counselor and vice versa.
It is about finding the right person
There is not a wrong or right therapist. Instead, it comes down to what they can offer you individually. This will not come from the letters after their name. Rather, it is about how you feel when you work with them. Although this may take trial and error in order to figure out the right person for you, it will happen. It is important not to give up hope when looking for a therapist or counselor.
How is counseling different from therapy?
To sum it up, counseling is also usually more short-term than therapy. Psychotherapy is another form of therapy, and it is usually a longer-term process than counseling because it focuses on more issues. In fact, the underlying principle is that a person’s patterns of thinking and behavior will affect how they interact with the world. If you are suffering from any type of mental health issues, contact Stress Counseling Denver.
