Does counseling really work anyway? I've been to a bunch of counselors in my life and I found more help from books and from others and just dealing with things that way. Counselors usually just aren't that helpful. I realized that I was going to the last couple of counselors with the goal to decide what to do. They can try to help me sort that out, but they can't give me the answer, I have to figure that out on my own. I'm my worst enemy. Other counselors just listened and gave no advice and I might as well have talked to a friend. My dh and I have been to counseling where we've argued through the sessiona dn the counselor did nothing to help us through it, but just let us get everything out and 10 sessions later, we were arguing about the same stuff and they wouldn't intervene at all. Totally pointless. Books help me out a lot. I think change is made by identifying the problem and then doing the work consistently to fix the problem. We often need help itentifying and admitting the problem though.