Early bird or night owl, these days you can pretty much have a counselling session when it suits you. Counselling centres like ours offer early appointments from 7am, and the latest ones start at 9pm. You can even schedule in a session at weekends. Living a busy life, you need your therapy to facilitate your work-life balance. But with so much choice, the question is: what’s the optimum time for you to have therapy?
There are three aspects to consider here. The first is about practical stuff. The second is about energy levels. And the third is more emotional.
Practical reasons for choosing when to have therapy
From a practical point of view, you may have lots to juggle in your life. You need your therapy sessions to fit with your schedule. Early morning counselling appointments are perfect for busy executives who want to unburden at the start of the day, and leave feeling lighter and more focused to tackle their meetings, reports and to-do lists.
Evening sessions also fit around frantic working lives, offering the opportunity to explore and process your issues at the only time of day when you have a free moment.
Daytime counselling sessions can be arranged to fit around the school run. If you have a day working from home, a lunchtime session could be just what you need. Or if you are self-employed and arrange your day accordingly.
Pick a counselling session when your energy levels are right
And what about your energy levels? We all have peaks and troughs in our day. Some of us are sharp in the mornings and less alert in the afternoons. Others take several cups of coffee before they feel able to function in the mornings, but can work blissfully and productively into the evening.
What we’re about to say may sound counter-intuitive, but it can be better to attend therapy when you’re not at your peak.
When you’re tired, or your ‘face the world’ mode has been switched off, you can feel more open to exploring what really matters to you in therapy. Obviously, that all depends on how you structure your day.
You may want to come for counselling in the morning after your yoga session, when you’re feeling at one with the world. Or you may want to come after a full-on workout in the evening when you’ve shed the physical stresses of the day and want to work on your emotional ones. If the counselling session is for children, it may be most appropriate to come after school to avoid anything over stimulating should they return to class the same day..
The important thing is to give yourself the time and space when you’re most open to working on the issues that matter to you.
What about the emotions that come up in counselling? What then?
The emotional aspects of your decision of when to have therapy may be more intuitive. Therapy can bring up feelings that may need some time and space for you to process afterwards. Your therapist can help facilitate this by grounding you back in the world towards the end of your session, but you will instinctually know at what time of the day you will get the most out of therapy.
Call 020 8673 4545 or email [email protected] to book a session with one of our counsellors, psychotherapists or psychologists at a time of day that suits you.
The Awareness Centre offers low cost counselling, private therapy, LGBT and multilingual counselling and children & adolescent counselling at our premises on Abbeville Road in Clapham. We are a private healthcare provider.
