AI & Social Media Research
From Understanding the Terminology to Understanding Yourself - AI, social media and online research can give us useful language. Counselling adds the relational depth that information alone cannot provide.
It has never been easier to find language for our experiences. Social media, podcasts, books and AI can introduce ideas such as attachment styles, gaslighting, trauma bonds, breadcrumbing, narcissistic abuse, ADHD, avoidance and emotional regulation. Finding a term that describes something you have struggled to understand can be validating and can be an important starting point.
Information can help us recognise concepts and patterns, but knowing the terminology is different from understanding how a pattern developed, what activates it in you, what purpose it may have served and what happens when it appears in a real relationship.
Expanding your knowledge
You may know your attachment style, recognise that you avoid conflict, understand the definition of a trauma bond or have read extensively about narcissistic abuse and still find that the same feelings and patterns appear when you are actually in relationship with another person.
When might Counselling be helpful?
Counselling may be the natural next step when you have learned a great deal but feel that insight alone is not changing what happens emotionally or relationally.
How can Counselling help?
Counselling does something different from information. The counselling relationship gives you an opportunity to notice patterns as they emerge in connection with another person, explore feelings that cannot be resolved by explanation alone and turn intellectual understanding into a more personal and lived understanding.
What counselling with Sarah might look like?
I welcome clients who have researched extensively before arriving. You do not need to put that knowledge aside. It can become useful material to explore together, while keeping the focus on your individual experience rather than fitting you or someone else into an online label.
Taking care of yourself
Use online information as a starting point rather than a verdict on yourself or another person. Be cautious about content that encourages certainty about diagnoses or motives without knowing the individual or the relationship.
