People Still Judge Those in Counseling

We truly believe that attitudes towards counseling will change in our lifetime.  

After all the efforts to destigmatize mental health treatment in this country and we still hear people say they won’t do counseling because people will judge them. Yet not accept that they are influenced by what others may think of them. As clinicians we deal with this dynamic towards mental health on a regular basis. In fact, the Garrison Team is all too familiar with these attitudes, and we have become rather effective at normalizing mental health within the workplace. We have been told by countless clients that the clinic was not what they expected. That therapy was not what they expected. It is this shift in thinking when the potentiality for life’s changes can become possible.

I think we understand those feelings better than most, as we get to see that attitude from the perspective of hundreds (maybe thousands) of differing viewpoints. When we attend to a client in counseling, a large part of that treatment consists of coming to an agreed upon decision as to what counseling means to them. To some, counseling is seen as a means to an end and to others it is the start of a path to much greater possibilities. We have seen this change take place with countless clients and with that new understanding comes a great deal of other change and growth. Clients begin to see other parts of their thinking that can be reconsidered. We see it is our beliefs that shape our life and we are in control of those beliefs. We understand that this process is not weakness, but strength.