If you are reading this review, then it could safely be assumed that you are looking for a good psychologist / counsellor / psychotherapist ; but not sure as to how to decide upon who / what is good. Hope this review is of help in ending that search!! (It’s a bit lengthy, so one could skip the background part and go directly to the review part.)
I had started looking to go to a therapist sometime in 2018. Went to one therapist, but after one visit just left it and thought will try to “sort” things out by myself! Only to realise after 4 more years that it is difficult without a professional help.
Many many many a times I have heard so many ‘life coach gurus’ and self-help trainers say
one needs to have control on their mind,
one needs to change the pattern of their “-ve” thinking,
not let your thoughts impact you, cultivate newer skills and hobbies to change the behaviour of the brain,
learn to let go of the thoughts that bother you and don’t drown yourself in them !!
And always always have wondered “HOW!!!!!!!???????” to go about doing these things?
No one explains the How part. Theory was told, no practical explanation was offered.
It was left to me to find out How to go about trying to do what they are suggesting- and in the process used to end up getting more frustrated, as I wasn’t going anywhere and instead now was fighting two times more – one to keep the troubling, repetitive, irrational thoughts at bay and second to force myself to take up hobbies – just to find that my programmed brain had won the race and was already waiting at my hobby station ready to pull me down !! As a result, I used to run away from anything creative and fun, as I knew eventually at the end of it, I will be left battling my mind, and not enjoying the task at hand!
End result – feel tired, be lifeless, listless, unenthusiastic, and then to top the cake, add the feeling of guilt for being such a boring, grumpy, annoying person for the family to put up with!!
Then, as if some part of my brain or this universe heard my cries for help, it directed me towards Anushree Chaterjee!! I too was searching online for therapists and counsellors near me for a while, and something about Ms Anushree made me feel comfortable and approachable. For some reason the profile pic and the online description about Ms Anushree’s work on Practo caught my attention – and the next thing I know was that I was trusting my instinct and decided to meet Ms Anushree – had to make a start somewhere, right!?
I went ahead and booked an appointment with the mindset ‘let me see where this goes’ ! One meeting and then I can decide whether I even need a counsellor or not and whether I should continue with Ms Anushree or not (and I am a cynical person-and only listen to what I feel in the first meet) !
And this review is being written after 7 sessions with Ms Anushree - and hope to continue to got for few more !!
Ms Anushree made me feel comfortable about myself, about my “irrational” thoughts, helped me find pattern & logic in what & how i think and most importantly, taught me easy techniques on How to go about managing my thoughts and in the process reducing the grip of my thoughts on me and my day to day life !!
The techniques suggested were simple, easy ones; example:
There was this questionnaire kind of thing given to me, which I was asked to answer when I might experience any trigger which might cause me emotional / mind discomfort. It had questions that made me pause and think about what I was feeling vs what i was thinking. These things helped me in understanding my feelings vis-a-viś the patterned thinking of my brain. I could distinguish between the patterned thinking (which the brain by now was habituated to, was on auto mode) and whether it is something else!
Another technique was to keep doing what I was doing without giving any undue importance to what my mind was thinking. This was (and at times still is, tough, but have been suggested work around for this also).
One other method to address the ‘how’ part was some simple breathing practices, slow-fast jogging to slow down&settle the racing mind.
All easy and seemingly obvious ones !
Even though initially I found it difficult to apply some techniques/ methods, I could, without hesitation, feed that back to Anushree, and then a different approach was suggested.
The sessions helped me open up and get the things bothering me out of my system in a comfortable manner. Never once did I feel I was being judged or doubted when I was talking with Anushree. I could open up easily and without hesitation.
And the entire journey so far has been so easy and never once have I felt like I am being “cured” or “treated” or “being sorted out” - because the whole approach is to make us understand ourselves a bit more and thereby understand why is it we think what we think and how it is not that something is wrong with me or in the way I think.
If anything, I am made to feel that I have always been a sorted out person, always been strong and level headed and that feeling has helped me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and take my strides with both confidence and music in them!!
Anushree makes the whole process effortless, is super approachable and is just plain intelligent and knows what she is doing.
And after every session I have returned with a feeling of lightness and calmness.
Most importantly, I used to feel very overwhelmed thinking something is wrong with me, no one can actually understand what I am going through as no one else would be having such thoughts or fears ! But after the sessions, I was made to realise that I am not all that unique in this aspect, that it is OK to have thoughts of any and all nature, one should just learn how not give themselves completely to their thoughts or not give their thoughts undue importance – and that How to go about all this is something so essential and what I was looking for!
It just feels like when the time is right, things just happen to fall into place, and for me meeting Anushree was one of those right times.
Initially, the ‘Anushree dose’, as I call it, used to last for about 5-7 days for me, and I would schedule my next session in a weeks time. Later, could notice the effectiveness increased to 2 weeks.
There is still a long way to go for me, and with Anushree’s guidance and help I have at least started to look for a switch to the bulb at the end of the dark tunnel - it is up to me to switch on that light !
Only one tip (as it helped me): go prepared for the sessions. Not in the sense of entirely preparing a speech, but do make a list of points you want to mention. One session that I went without having anything to say, as I didn’t have anything bothering me that week (which is A Huge thing for me in forever years), I found that it wasn’t as fun or liberating as the previous sessions and I felt as though I was giving some kind of wrong impression.
One request to Ms Anushree would be if there could be an option to choose a longer session- as on some days i felt one 55-60 minutes was not sufficient, and would have liked just 30mts more. So if there could be one-off slots of 1.3 hours, it might give us a choice to use it when needed.