Are these mental health counselors? or career counselors?
I have a music student I was describing to my counselor whom I've been teaching for about three years now. She has been through 3-4 mental health counselors during that time. She is unable to maintain relationships because of having an extreme conflict oriented personality. She has several, severe mental issues, but they align in her behavior to act out a lot like BPD, which she could also have. She is diagnosed with Aspbergers, trauma, brain injury, and she has mentioned to me different hard drugs she has taken. She told me at her recent lesson that her counselor became very mean to her, so she tried a new one who acted like a "Nazi" about her being late. He said if she was even a few minutes late he would not hold her session.
I think she is an extremely interesting lady, and if I were a mental health professional, it would make sense to me to be even more interested. What a great opportunity to better understand the human mind and exercise your helping profession? I don't understand a mindset from a mental health professional that would refuse people who have severe issues unless you didn't have the skill and training to help.
Edit: I guess that phrase "not worth it" really stung.
Why did it sting? Are you borderline?
They're not worth it because they take your advice, go use it, screw it up, then blame you for all their problems that ultimately will never be fixed.
They also cling to you and become dependant and want to follow you everywhere in real life. What's that movie with billy crystal?
Your girlfriend is mad at you, you get fired from every job for being a douche, you're a lost soul and not sure what to do with your life, people act a certain way around you and you don't know why, you're not sure what career you should take...
Regular people problems. Those are what I fix. Anything more than that requires chemicals and support groups, neither of which counsellors or life coaches provide. It is difficult when clients come to me looking for help in general, and don't even know what the issue is. You listen for hours in the hopes that it will eventually surface, but it never does, and then they get angry because they are spending money by the hour and neither of you has figured out what their problem is.
Even those who simply want someone to listen to them... I feel guilty doing that, because you are paying me to be your friend, which puts me in an awkward position as well.
(speaking of which I'm overdue to set up a referral with a psychiatrist and some support groups).