As the nights roll in earlier and the weather gets chilly, it’s natural to not feel so breezy and bright. Over the next few months we’ll be dipping in with Nottingham Counselling Service to hear about their work and how we should normalise talking about our mental health.
One of the most fundamental aspects of being human is our ability to talk and listen to each other. Our ability to express our thoughts, ideas and feelings through language is as old as the hills. It’s kept us safe and supported our mental health throughout the centuries, without being formalised as doing so. “We’ve always needed to talk,” says Shoana Qureshi-Khan, Executive Director of Nottingham Counselling Services (NCS). “It used to be a neighbour or the person down the street that you knew was a great listener. Now we’re in 2024, we’re in a whole different place and it’s just not that easy.”
Counselling can help to fill the modern day gap for the age old need, by offering us a qualified professional with the warmth and approachability of the neighbour down the street. Years of research and developments in the field of counselling mean there’s much more knowledge about what helps an individual, empowering them to turn talking into action to improve their lives. “It's an accumulation of the new and the old coming together,” says Shoana, who holds an MSc in Psychology. “This is no different to advancements in medicine that have created antibiotics for diseases.”
We wouldn’t go through life expecting to have immaculate physical health, never getting a cold or tripping up. We can’t expect the same of our mental health. And when we do inevitably need some help, counselling can offer that safe space to talk
Nestled close to the bustling Victoria Centre in its now modern premises, NCS is a charity that has a long history of holding the community at its heart, with its roots tracing back as far as 1875. Despite counselling, in some form, having existed for so long, Shoana knows there’s still stigma that prevents people from reaching out for help. Modern day life can give us the impression that we need to cope with our stresses and worries on our own, or that we shouldn’t have them in the first place.
But it's an inevitability of life that whatever our background or income, we will be faced by mental health challenges at times. “Too many challenges at once are going to throw anybody. Challenges with no support systems are going to break people quicker and challenges that the mind just can't make sense of really need somebody else to help” explains Shoana. If you’ve never had counselling before and you’re unsure what to expect, Shoana describes it as a train journey: “Some bits are going to feel like hours. Some bits are going to go really quick and some bits are going to get noisy. But at the end of the train journey you should be happy to see that you've reached your next destination.”
We wouldn’t go through life expecting to have immaculate physical health, never getting a cold or tripping up. We can’t expect the same of our mental health. And when we do inevitably need some help, counselling can offer that safe space to talk. “You will be welcomed and you won’t be judged” reassures Shoana “If you’re unsure, just try exploring it a little more and get more of your questions answered.”
One-to-one therapy: £18-£58 per session. Visit nottinghamcounsellingcentre.org.uk to self-refer.
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