- Every one has different feelings about money, and that can be a distraction from what is important right now
- Counselling should be focused only on you and your feelings
- By paying in advance, the session becomes the safe space you need to work on feeling better
The subject of money is a funny thing. For some people, it is the most important thing; it’s the thing that they work for, it’s the thing they measure value against, it comes into every decision they make. For others, it’s a secondary thought, an inconvenience, and not something they want to have to think about. And it doesn’t matter if you have a lot of it, or a little, how you feel about money can influence how you feel about everything else.
Ask any therapist and they will tell you that they would love to provide therapy free to everyone, because they truly believe that everyone can benefit from it (see our other blog Will Counselling Help Me? – Nurture Mental Health ). But the world does not work that way, and your therapist needs to earn a living too.
Imagine the vulnerability of sharing your deepest thoughts alongside a compassionate therapist, letting down your defences, saying the previously unspeakable, the freedom of acceptance from a person genuinely invested in your feelings, revelling in the clarity of realisations you have just made… and then being reminded payment is now due.
That is the proverbial door slamming on all that acceptance, movement and progress. The moment is lost.
Counselling is a safe space for you to explore your true feelings. It is a non-judgemental, understanding relationship, where you can put other things aside and concentrate on the issues you need to work through.
Your therapists is giving all of those things to you. They have trained for many years to be able to provide the empathy, genuineness and acceptance needed to give them the ability to stay with you and guide you through your feelings.
This is why they prefer to leave the subject of payment outside of that space. That space is for you, and payment is a distraction from the focus on you.
Making the payment in advance is also a signal to yourself that you are committed to therapy and therefore prepared to work at it, which is a necessary part of the process. Therapy is not done ‘to you’, it is done ‘with you’.
It is also a helpful reminder that the session is planned for tomorrow, so you don’t forget!
So thank you for taking for the time to pay in advance, to get the payment out of the way, to ensure the focus can be on your growth, and thank you for recognising the value your therapy has.
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