How does online counselling work?
Counselling is a process which allows you to explore your current problems with alcohol in some depth.
Counselling is not just someone listening to you and saying “hmmm, and how did that make you feel?” (although that might occasionally be said), this is much more focussed on your alcohol problem, and on finding solutions for it.
Although drinking too much creates its own problems, it is quite often a reaction to other problems in your life. People drink as a way of dealing with aspects of their life that they’re not happy with. That can be anything of course - from not liking the feeling of boredom, or not wanting to feel stressed and frustrated any more, to being unhappy in a relationship or unfulfilled at work.
So in order to break the reliance on alcohol, you need to try some different ways of dealing with the difficult aspects of your internal and external life. This means looking at cognitive solutions to inner problems and practical solutions to external ones. Cognitive solutions come about by exploring what you are actually saying to yourself with your own thoughts, and working out how that inner dialogue makes you feel. From there you can decide which parts of it you’d like to change.
Practising those changes, you’ll feel yourself dealing with life differently, and approaching alcohol differently, not being dependent on it in order to cope, but coping better just as you are, without the consequences of heavy drinking making things even harder. So counselling addresses the other problems in your life, as well as the drinking, because of course they are closely interrelated.
Online counselling is just a different way of delivering this.
You use one of our private instant-messaging chat-rooms to talk with your counsellor at a pre-arranged time, so of course you don’t need to leave your home, you don’t need to get to a clinic and back again.
You don’t need a web cam, so you are totally anonymous. You just login with your counsellor and start typing what you need to say. Each session lasts for an hour.
You will receive a transcript of each session, allowing you to review everything said by you and your counsellor. From this you can clarify anything you’re not sure about, which is an advantage over other therapy methods.
Typing text can be a very precise method of communicating, there are no interruptions and you can say something exactly how you want to. Of course if you discover that it’s not for you, then we offer a full refund.
Alternatively, if you would actually like to see your counsellor face-to-face, we can use a Skype video call.
How long will counselling take? That varies from person to person. It depends upon your current situation, who you are, and how motivated you are.
You can stay in daily contact with your counsellor through our journal form - where you can record your thoughts and feelings related to your drinking.
If you’ve got any more queries about it, read our frequently asked questions page.
It’s very affordable -
The first session is available at a reduced rate - only £19.50 (US$28),
and if you then decide you want further sessions they are £29.50 (US$43),
or a package of four sessions for even less - £110 (US$161).
Now fill out the FREE CONSULTATION FORM if you’d like to receive a personal assessment of how you can solve your alcohol problems through counselling.
You should also make sure you’ve had a read of our confidentiality policy, which deals with how we handle your personal information.
