professionals advise against having counselling...

Hi @HellonWheels, I know what you mean about hating advice. I grew up hating advice because I was always being told what to do, every minute of the day, and so I felt I had no freedom to make my own decisions.

As an adult I find advice very interesting.... because it tells us something about the person who is giving it. When I hear advice I think to myself "Ah-Ha! So that's something they believe in, or value or whatever. I didn't know that before." So receiving advice is a good way of learning about a person you think you know well.

But as for taking that advice..... it depends on how I personally feel at the time.

When you are receiving advice from total strangers on a forum, I guess it's hard to become interested in their personal beliefs, because you don't know them at all. But at least the advice is unbiased, because they don't know you either! You can take it or leave it.

Trusting her Psychiatrist should not mean the same as substituting his/her judgments for her own.

If your aunt feels that counselling would help her than she should try it regardless of her Psychiatrists opinion.

It would be a mistake for her to think that her Psychiatrist is "'all knowing" God like and can never be wrong.

She should weight her Psychiatrists opinion carefully,as Im guessing her Psychiatrist knows her situation well if she has been their patient long term and she is happy with them,but ultimately the decision whether she feels counselling would help or not is hers alone to make.

Hi @ivana

thanks for writing. It's my friend's aunt who sufferers from severe anxiety, not my own aunt. I just thought I'd clarify that, so as you can see I'm quite removed from the situation!

Personally, I think she possibly could benefit from counselling, but she, herself does not want it. She trusts the psychiatrist completely and he has told her that counselling would have no effect at all.

She must have some kind of vested interest in believing that her anxiety is entirely genetic and beyond her control.

I have noticed that some people are like this: they have an illness (be it mental or physical) and that illness is just 'bad luck' as far as they are concerned. Nothing they could do or might have done could possibly make any difference to the illness. The illness just fell out of the sky and struck them down. Now it is up to the doctors to "fix" them.

These people are very comfortable having someone else make all the decisions.

I am with you, @ivana. I think patients should be their own advocates and do a bit of research into their illnesses, if at all possible. Then they can make an educated decision as to whether to have counselling or not.

When I was very ill with depression - I had no idea what to do! I just did whatever I was told to do by the doctors. Believe me, I was in no condition to make any decisions. I was completely bonkers.... I was lucky to still be able to tie my own shoe laces.

Once I began to recover, way down the track, years down the track, then I was able to decide what I wanted to do and to explore more treatment options. Now, if I did have a relapse, then I believe I would be well-prepared.

Maybe you could say to her that even if there are genetic causes that it doesn't mean that sometimes the person can't make any chances to influence the "course" of it.

Eg:like a person in a family who has Type 2 Diabetes can still go to a Nutritionist and get help with diet and lifestyle changes and better manage their Diabetes.

I doubt that will have any effect on her though if she's the type of person who prefers to have no personal responsibility at all (when capable) for her healthcare plan/choices.

It seems pretty unhealthy that your friends aunt puts that much total trust in her Psychiatrists opinion and has a "fix me" " think for me" type of mentality.

The Psychiatrist should also be discouraging this type of thinking but in reality some even encourage it due to wishing to feed their ego.