Managing stress and inner discomfort but psychological counselling remains taboo

By Cristiano Antonino Last updated Jan 7, 2023

Psychological counselling is a service that is increasingly in demand but difficult to access due to the sense of shame that afflicts the patient

Over the last decade, consulting a psychologist has become an increasingly common practice in cases of need, as many taboos and stereotypes that revolved around this professional figure have disappeared over time, thanks also to social awareness, carried out by the psychologist community itself, and to the general emancipation of society.

Therefore, today psychological counselling is an increasingly popular service

Around which, however, there tends to remain a general sense of shame that often complicates people’s access to this professional figure.

It can be difficult to ask a friend or acquaintance for advice than a valid professional, like any doctor, as this inevitably opens up communication about our more intimate and personal problems, which we may wish to avoid sharing with others.

This often leads people to go their own way in seeking out a psychologist, often via the Internet, when, on the contrary, consulting one’s general practitioner, or a trusted person, would leave us less alone in solving our problems and could direct us towards more accredited professionals.

However, let us try to clarify when psychological counselling can be useful and what the areas of interest of psychology are, as the fields of intervention in this sense are numerous and involve various levels of intervention.

In the course of our lives we go through transitional phases, often ‘physiological’, which constitute moments of crisis during which even simple support or the possibility of being able to open up and confront an expert are strongly protective actions against the risk that, on the basis of such circumstances of the life cycle, a more persistent psychological problem or discomfort will be structured.

The etymology of the word ‘crisis’, a term that today has acquired an entirely negative sense, refers to a moment of choice, change and strong decision.

Therefore, a change is inherent in the crisis, which, like all changes, is destabilising, but which can take place through a positive transformation in evolutionary terms and in terms of wellbeing, or, on the other hand, it can determine a strong discomfort, which is structured to the extent that one is too rigid or refractory to change, which can determine an evolutionary block.

In these situations, where a frank symptom is not necessarily present, psychological counselling and support can be read as ‘taking care’ of one’s person and one’s psychophysical well-being, as a protective and preventive aspect of one’s health.

On the other hand, as is more usually the case, consulting the psychologist is often motivated by the presence of a symptomatology, of an anxious or depressive type, such as sleep difficulties, panic attacks, crying crises, lack of motivation, anger dyscontrol, relationship or adaptation problems, eating disorders, somatisation, etc.

In such circumstances, psychological counselling is only the first step in understanding how to solve a psychological problem that is weighing on us, preventing us from going about our daily lives in the various contexts: family, social and work.

In such a case, the meeting with the psychologist-psychotherapist cannot be circumscribed but can represent the opportunity for a deeper path that we can classify as psychotherapeutic.

We emphasise ‘psychotherapist’ because, in terms of skills, it is essential that the psychologist is specialised in the discipline of psychotherapy.

It is essential to open up with an expert to avoid transactional phases becoming a persistent discomfort

In cases of evident symptomatologies, the general tendency, sometimes endorsed by family doctors, is to use purely pharmacological therapies, with respect to which it is useful to point out that the ‘psychopharmaceutical’, more often than not, is not decisive in terms of overcoming the problem but is limited, where it is effective, to reducing or eliminating the symptomatology in a circumstantial manner to the taking of the pharmacological therapy itself.

A psychotherapeutic course, on the other hand, without excluding the possibility of pharmacological support, which is in any case appropriate in certain cases, is configured as a therapeutic intervention aimed at overcoming the problem.

This is because the symptoms represent the phenomenal aspect of an inner uneasiness that is different, simply constituting a signal that our mind forces us to grasp.

It is as if our body is telling us ‘you can’t not deal with this problem anymore’, but the problem is reaffirmed not to be the symptom but rather what is underlying it in terms of discomfort and inner conflict.

The symptom is a signal that has to be read and interpreted in order to be resolved and this generally takes time and perseverance, it is certainly not a short or undemanding path.

Beyond the individual clinical case, as mentioned, psychological counselling finds application in various fields

For example, that of parental support in the relationship with children in the developmental age, or in relation to difficulties and symptoms of the children themselves that often require specialised psychological intervention, such as in cases of school phobia, nocturnal enuresis, separation anxiety, performance anxiety, or simple difficulties related to the interruption of breast-feeding or the acquisition of sphincter autonomy, or stuttering and school and/or specific learning difficulties.

In the developmental clinic, the therapy of choice is ‘family therapy’, i.e. a setting in which interviews are held in the presence of the entire cohabiting family unit in order to work on the ‘family system’.

This, in addition to greater effectiveness in terms of benefiting the child, makes it possible not to designate the child as a problematic subject (a potentially iatrogenic factor) to the extent that the mother and father also come to therapy.

Another relevant area is that of counselling and couple counselling in the marital crisis or separation phases, not only for the couple themselves, who can be accompanied in the separation or conflict resolution, but also with respect to the management of the dynamics with the children, i.e. how to deal with them or how to prevent marital conflict from affecting their well-being and serenity.

In this sense, psychological counselling or a consequent path of support for the couple proves to be extremely useful.

Many of these situations are clearly not strictly clinical, but rather circumstances that individuals and families very frequently face and in respect of which psychological counselling should not be delayed.

Sometimes a simple clarification or redefinition of the problem can prove to be an excellent resource for proceeding independently in dealing with the vicissitudes that life imposes on us.

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