The Counseling Effect

Counseling, when practiced by a true professional like Connie H. Deutsch, can be a very powerful tool to help you change destructive behavior patterns that have kept you in a downward spiral of pain and depression. Whether it’s your relationships, your finances, your job, your family or your children, this book illustrates the value of counseling and gives a wealth of stories and experiences that you will be able to relate to, together with practical exercises you can do to change these patterns and to create happy relationships, healthy finances and a meaningful career.

Excerpt

Introduction

Although counseling has become an accepted part of our social makeup, there are still many who don’t know what it is and what it can accomplish. For some, it’s the solution to many of their problems; for others, it’s a way of getting to know themselves better, and for still others, it’s a roadmap to learning how they can break their destructive patterns of behavior.

Counseling is not a one-size-fits-all method of curing the world’s ills. At its best, it should be tailored to meet the needs of the individual or the family or the workplace environment. It should have an action plan to accomplish the goals set up during the counseling sessions and a strategy for making it come together in a practical way. At its worst, it can become a shouting match with nothing being accomplished. It can also take the form of the counselor siding with one of the parties or trying to force his or her opinions on one or both of them.

A good counselor doesn’t take sides. No matter what personal opinions a counselor has, they should be shelved and not allowed to interfere with the process taking place. The value of these sessions lies in the premise that the clients’ issues are on the table and they can be examined and resolved in an amicable way with both parties willing to try to heal the breach in the relationship.

Interspersed throughout this book are many of the counseling techniques I have used with my clients. They have proved very successful and have many practical applications.