Why good therapists don’t give advice

Many clients who seek counselling or psychotherapy come in expecting to be told what is wrong with them and how to fix it. It is often something I need to clarify with my clients quite early on when they start asking me what to do in relation to tricky situations in their life, hoping to receive advice and solutions to their problems. It is, after all, what they’re paying me for, isn’t it? And if I’m not going to give them advice, what am I going to do?

The confusion is understandable. While there may be practitioners out there who do view themselves as the expert, giving advice as a therapist is not only unhelpful, but very often unethical and in some cases harmful. Let’s take a look at why that is and clarify what therapists actually do, if giving advice isn’t their job.

The client is the expert

While counsellors and psychotherapists are trained in helping their clients work out where their problems stem from and what may be helpful in achieving their desired goals in life, the client is the one who knows their own life the best. Things that would potentially cause discomfort for me personally, may be aspects of my clients’ life that they’re perfectly happy with, while they struggle with another part of their life entirely. My life experience, circumstances and skills are most likely very different to those of my clients and what may work for me, could harm them. My advice would be based on my own values and beliefs, which may differ, in some cases significantly, from my clients’ and it is therefore unlikely to serve them well. Counsellors and psychotherapists aren’t experts on other people’s lives, but rather we are here to support our clients in finding their own ways and solutions to their problems.

Empowerment not dependency

One of the main goals of therapy is that clients no longer need it. Giving advice to clients would be doing them a disservice as it could be actively getting in the way of their own growth. Just like in the old saying -“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” By providing advice I would be teaching my clients that the answers they’re looking for are outside of them rather than within and robbing them of their autonomy. I could also be creating unhealthy dynamics regarding the client’s dependency on the therapist for guidance. Rather than supporting the client in building their own internal resources and skills for problem-solving, the message they would be getting from this experience is that they need others to make decisions for them. This not only hinders the client’s growth, but it is unethical and simply not what therapy is about.

So what do we do in therapy?

Therapy is about creating a safe space for clients to explore their experiences and building their internal support, resources and skills in order for them to find their own way to thrive in life. This may involve unpacking how the past impacts their present, working towards deeper awareness around their values, beliefs and how these serve them and gaining insight into how they make contact with the world around them. If someone is asking their therapist for advice, they may hold some deep beliefs about needing others to help them make decisions or about the value of their own opinions. Should the therapist step into the role of the “advice-giver”, they would be reinforcing this belief for the client, further disempowering them and strengthening their story of their inability to make their own decisions. Instead, this is an excellent opportunity for exploring how the client came to have such beliefs about themselves. We could get curious about questions like: What is their story around the value of their own opinion? How did they learn to ask others what to do? Is their own opinion something they were ever allowed to have? Or perhaps - How is asking others for guidance serving them now? There may be many avenues to explore this theme with the client, all of which would probably offer important insights. These would be completely missed if the therapist simply provided advice, which would essentially just be an opinion of one person - the therapist.

Invitations and encouragement

Something that may frequently happen in counselling and psychotherapy sessions and what could feel like a form of advice are your therapist's invitations and encouragement. Certain self-care activities and practices that are generally known to be beneficial, can complement the therapeutic process and contribute to your general wellbeing may be suggested by your therapist. They may, for example, encourage you to spend some time in nature, try out yoga and meditation, experiment with some form of creative activity or to pay attention to how much sleep you’re getting. Your counsellor or psychotherapist may also invite you to start noticing specific aspects of your interactions with others and your internal responses to these. This supports you in becoming more aware of what happens for you in these situations. While this may feel like advice at the time, these are simply invitations aimed to provide you with extra tools and inner resources for supporting yourself. Trying out these extra-curriculums will go hand in hand with your regular sessions and can help you to get the most out of your hard-earned dollars spent on therapy.

To sum it up, providing advice isn’t a part of counselling or psychotherapy. Therapy will help you shine light into some of the corners of your life that you may have kept in the dark. It will make facing painful or daunting stuff a bit less scary by having someone by your side, which is something you may not have had in the past. However, your therapist isn’t the expert on your life. When looking for guidance, a good therapist will work with you to navigate the specific complexities of your life and help you explore what’s holding you back, keeping you stuck and what do you actually want. They won’t give you the answers, but they will assist you in finding them within yourself.