Personally, I think all of us could benefit from some counselling, and depression is certainly one thing that may bring you to the counselling room. In fact, one in five people in the UK have accessed counselling at some point and more than half of us know something that has.

So, what else is counselling for?

· Learning to love/value yourself – counselling can help to improve your relationship with yourself

· Speaking to someone objectively about your problems – Many of my clients talk about how good it is to talk to someone who doesn’t have a personal stake in their world

· Navigating life choices – Counselling can help you with weighing up big decisions, and the emotions around them

· Expressing yourself in a healthy way – Communication isn’t always an easy skill, counselling can help you to freely express yourself

· Learning how to talk about uncomfortable things – Counselling can help you to discuss uncomfortable things and also to really sit with them

· Building better relationships – Getting to know yourself better will really improve your relationships with others, counselling will also help you to build trust, transparency and set appropriate boundaries

· Identifying patterns – It’s difficult to look at your own decisions and see patterns in them, counselling can help you to identify patterns in your thinking and explain them to you, this will then allow you to notice patterns in your day-to-day life.

· Ensuring someone is in your corner – Counselling, unlike any friendship is based on unconditional positive regard.

That’s a snapshot, I’m sure there are many more ways in which counselling can help.