Luckily, the awareness about the importance of counselling and therapy has never been as widespread as it is in the present world. More and more people have started coming forward to seek therapy or counselling. Certain celebrities being vocal about their own fights with psychological disorders and the benefit they derived through counselling, is definitely helping the cause. The advent of online psychological consultation has made the access to counselling much easier and convenient. For people who hesitate to actually visit clinics due to some fear of being seen or being judged by others, seeking help from the comfort and privacy of their own homes has made things so easier for them.
Though the words counselling and therapy are often used interchangeably, there are actually some basic differences between the two. However, at the same time, both of them share a very important common goal, and that is, alleviation of the client’s problems.
Counselling is often used for every-day problems and stressors. It may also be used for relationship problems. Counselling is generally for a fixed time duration and fixed sessions. Thus, in a way, counselling may be considered to be somewhat short-term in nature.
Therapy on the other hand, is usually used for treating some significant psychiatric or psychological illnesses. It may be accompanied by pharmacotherapy. Therapy may be considered to be more in-depth, wherein the analysis may go back till early childhood experiences. Thus, therapy is often long-term and may need several sessions before some real positive change can be seen.