Counselling
If you have dementia, or you care for someone living with dementia, it’s normal to have a lot of strong feelings, both good and bad.
You’re not alone. Dementia Australia offers free, confidential, professional counselling for individuals, families, couples and professional carers at all stages of a dementia journey.
Counselling can help you understand what you, or the person you care about, is going through. It can be good to talk with a professional about your:
- emotional reactions
- family and culture
- living arrangements
- dementia symptoms
- changed behaviours.
Everyone experiences dementia differently. Counselling can help you to:
- better understand the impact of dementia
- develop strategies to respond to feelings of stress or mixed emotions
- plan for the future, by setting goals and seeking referrals for practice support.
We can speak with you face-to-face, on the phone or via video conferencing.
How to start counselling
Call the free National Dementia Helpline any time, day or night, on 1800 100 500.
Transcript
[Beginning of recorded material]
[Title card: Dementia Australia]
[Title card: The Benefits of Dementia Counselling]
Robert: Hello, welcome to Dementia Australia's expert webinar series. I'm Robert Eddie. I'm a dementia counsellor with Dementia Australia, and also a dementia support specialist. Today, I hope to run through what are the benefits of dementia counselling, but before we start, I certainly wish to acknowledge the traditional custodians of this land we now call Australia, and also pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. The benefits of dementia counselling is the topic of the webinar, and I'll be covering understanding counselling and how dementia counselling is different, a little bit on who our counsellors are and what our qualifications are.
Also, some examples of concerns that people bring to the counselling sessions, and then wrapping up, putting that all together to describe the benefits that you can get from Australia's dementia counselling program, understanding counselling to start looking at a counselling session. In general, counselling sessions are sometimes not what people expect. If you've attended a counselling session previously, you may be well aware of how they run. Generally speaking, a counselling session involves a counsellor and perhaps one person, sometimes a counsellor and a couple, and sometimes even a counsellor with a group. Importantly, the counselling session is in an environment that is confidential, safe, and provides you with a space where you can comfortably talk about whatever may be concerning you.
In terms of a counselling session, the counsellor's not there to listen to what you say and then advise you of what to do. Common misconception, why would I go to a counsellor? What can they tell me that I don't already know? In fact, when in a counselling session, you are regarded as the expert, you're the expert in what's concerning you, your experience, your life story, your resilience, and your skills in coping through all sorts of challenges. The counsellor's role is to ensure that you can focus on those and bring those to effect against what challenges you are facing. We walk beside you, I guess, as a way to describe it, not directing, not leading, certainly not pushing, but we walk beside you in achieving your goals, and goal is a key point on commencing in a counselling session with a counsellor. Frequently, the counsellor will ask you to describe what you hope to get from counselling. What are you hoping to achieve? What's your goal?
Dementia counselling, what's different in terms of the way I described a counselling session? Very similar, the counsellor takes the same approach. However, with dementia counselling, our dementia counsellors do have expertise, and resources, and knowledge through their work with Dementia Australia. At times, there may be appropriate points where some advice and direction could be given, where certain behaviours regarding a person with dementia may be a concern. The person with dementia may be worried about particular way to behave or access, continue at work, communicate with colleagues. Then in those sorts of circumstances, the counsellor would likely give some advice and direction, but that doesn't take away from the fact that you are the expert, whether you are a person with dementia, or a person family member impacted by that, you are the expert in your situation.
Know your counsellor. Just very generally, not getting into too much personal detail, but just backgrounds. It's important to know that we are qualified, and we are available to provide counselling services through phone, also video conference, and also, face-to-face. Now, which format is used can depend on your location and the availability of a counsellor. We are qualified, we are registered with governing bodies, and we have to fulfil professional development requirements, and also meet the code of ethics of those governing bodies. As counsellors, we also have external supervision, lots of support, and we support each other as a team. I must say that our counselling team at Dementia Australia is a really well connected and mutually supportive team, and we benefit from all of our expertise and knowledge in providing services to our counselling program clients.
In terms of the sessions, we provide six sessions within the program, but six sessions aren't necessarily what a particular person may find useful, so just to briefly look at that, one session may be suitable, and I'll explain a situation where that might be the case a little later. If a person does continue with six sessions across the counselling program or continue with one or two, usually six are ideal, it's worth finishing the whole six. There are situations where the six sessions of a program might not fully meet the needs of the person attending the program. Usually, we focus on dementia and its impact, but quite often, it doesn't just stay within that circumstance. The impacts can be broader, can impact on communication between family members, well beyond the circle of the dementia focus as dementia counsellors, and with only six sessions in a program, we're not able to stray too far from the dementia focus.
It can be very important to consider other family and communication and other circumstances, whether it be work, living arrangements, but generally that's just touched on as an important issue. If it needs further counselling specifically, for example, relationship counselling, we would refer you to relationship counsellors after our six sessions. A little bit more detail, so a person who finds one session that is sufficient, they may come to a counselling session, and generally speaking, again, with the sense that they're a little unsure if they are providing the right sort of responses and support to a person with dementia. In terms of the person with a diagnosis, they may just want some reassurance around their thoughts, and experiences, and understanding of how that may be impacting their emotions and responses with dementia in mind.
Through that one session, a lot of those concerns may be addressed and you may feel great. Okay, I'm okay now, and that's fine to finish on one session. What the counsellor may do, though, is look at practical circumstances that you may benefit from some of our education programs, or our post diagnostic support program, where that dementia support specialist or educator will look at some very practical things around dementia and its impact, that may help you continue forward from there. The counselling session may meet your emotional needs in terms of feeling unsure, perhaps needing some positive reinforcement about what's going on and what you're doing, and then move on to the practical education-type sessions or programs.
A person coming for the first session and may be spend the whole session just describing all the challenges. A good example is where the primary person in the care relationship or support relationship is feeling strained. You may find it difficult to cope. Grief, loss of the person in terms of some personality, or communication skills, or future plans can leave a person feeling quite down, and grieving is a significant factor in dementia counselling.
There may be no agreement with other family or other significant people around the best way to provide support. That can be extremely challenging, leave a person feeling unsure of themselves and quite stressed, and occasionally, a person with a diagnosis of dementia may focus on a particular family member or support, and find it difficult to divide their requirements for support among the other family. That one person may be feeling that strain, so the emotional impact of dementia is a significant thing here. That counselling is best run over the six sessions of the program and meeting your emotional needs, and getting you to a point where you feel okay, and that your resilience is sufficient to continue forward. There are some solutions to your goals that you present with after those six sessions, that's where we would hope to, or certainly as counsellors, we would aim to arrive at on the sixth session.
And of course, for many people, routine is disrupted, balancing what is good for you, what you would like to do with what is important for the person with dementia can leave a person feeling quite guilty and challenged about the best way to move forward. All of those things are dementia focused, and something that we often assist support people to work through in the dementia counselling sessions.
What if you have a diagnosis of dementia? Very much, dementia counselling is, again, as the resources, expertise, and knowledge to support you with your counselling needs. A particular example, people diagnosed with dementia may be noticing the effects of dementia on your cognition. Family and friends comments may not seem right or make sense, a dementia counsellor is impartial, non-judgmental. We take a neutral approach to listening. We provide a safe space, welcoming, confidential space to hear your concerns. We do have some expertise and knowledge that you can use to bounce off to say, “Well, this is what I'm doing. How does that sound to you?” And that's, again, where dementia counselling probably varies a little bit from other counselling programs in that we may give some advice and information that will help the person with the diagnosis to consider their options, and reflect and develop their self-awareness on how dementia might be impacting you. Just having someone to bounce off is often all a person with dementia is looking for.
In that case of six dementia sessions, we would probably stretch them out with the person with dementias in consultation if that suits them. But generally, we find that over the six sessions, we space them out six weeks apart. Dementia is generally a fairly slow decline, and so, not much will change over those six weeks. Very little, other than maybe just developing a bit of more awareness and insight into what's happening.
The benefits for you, first up, just looking at access to our counsellors. It's free, confidential. We are professional, as I described, registered qualified counsellors, and we can provide counselling for individuals, families, couples. It depends on what you are seeking, but we can do that in the session. Have more than one person if that suits you. And of course, people caring for a person with dementia and people with a diagnosis of dementia. As I've touched on throughout this webinar, it is dementia focused, regain a sense of stability and understanding when the impact of dementia is overwhelming; and our counsellors have that expertise and resources through Dementia Australia, and the options to refer you on to other education or post diagnostic support programs.
I think it's useful now to provide some comments from our past dementia counselling clients. “I really find it useful to have someone listen. I can't tell you how much you've helped me. Thank you for that. You've been very helpful. I think I'm okay now. I'm over the hill.” Sometimes, that's a good analogy, climbing a mountain, from that particular person who gave us that feedback. I think it's probably useful to picture that mountain as not necessarily having a free run down the other side. Essentially, get to a bit of a plateau, at which point, everything can work quite well for quite a long time. If things then become challenging again for you, whether you've got a diagnosis or you're a carer, the hill might start to get a little steep again, and at that time, it's absolutely okay to re-refer to our dementia counsellors. Generally speaking, we look at around a 12-month gap between programs if you complete a six-session program, although all cases will be considered if you are requiring to connect with us again earlier than that.
“Incredibly helpful”. Importantly, here is a comment from a person with a diagnosis on their experience of the dementia counselling program. “Dementia counselling is more relevant to my counselling needs”, and that, again, comes back to the benefits of dementia counselling to you. I think I would certainly support that particular client's comment. It is more relevant to counselling needs where dementia is the focus of the concerns.
We look at the benefits in summary, we understand dementia, Dementia Australia's counsellors. We're qualified and experienced, we can provide up to six free counselling sessions. We provide counselling to carers and people with a diagnosis of dementia. And importantly, dementia and its impact on your life is the focus of our dementia counselling program, so thank you for attending this webinar today. I'm hopeful that you found it useful. And also, if you would like to consider chatting to our helpline staff, consider referral to our counsellors. Call our helpline number 1800 100 500, and helpline staff can make an internal referral to a dementia counsellor.
[Title card: Together we can reshape the impact of dementia]
[Title card: Dementia Australia. 1800 100 500. Dementia.org.au]
[END of recorded material]