Relationships, Identity, and Well-Being Online Counselor, Online Nurse

As a writer, a psychologist, a nurse, and now an online counselor, I appreciate the value of the written word, especially when it comes to matters of the heart and soul. For some of us, the face to face show down of a one on one office visit can be more inhibiting than helpful. You trek out to the therapist's office, you wait in the waiting room, greet awkwardly, take a seat, feel the studied gaze of the therapist's judgmental eye, and are asked, "so, where would you like to begin today?" to immediately draw a blank. As an online counselor, I believe that real soul work happens in accordance with real life – while conflict is in progress, when questions come up, when feelings are present – and oftentimes within the confines of our own minds. How nice it would be to dive into such a pursuit in one's own time, in one's own company, at one's own pace – like this – with your online counselor available on just the other side of your modem.

I offer my services as an online counselor for others who function best in this medium. Some people are verbal, some are more expressive with the written word. I think there should be a space for both. I love that our world is made up of different all different types - introverts, extraverts, talkers and listeners, the shy, the bold, the creative, the rebellious, the curious - and we're all changing. How you change, whether you change is all up to you and the choices you make and remake every day. Choosing an online counselor or counseling at all is one of those choices to decide for yourself.

While I am also a registered nurse, I chose to become an online counselor and psychotherapist. I began working with teenagers, from some of the roughest upbringings with some of the toughest problems . And they turned out to be some of the most wonderful teachers I've had. Inspired by their guidance I became a psychologist and a diagnostician and now an online counselor. I trained with the best of the best at Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, earning my Masters degree in 1996. I became a researcher, studying individuals with severe psychopathologies. I traveled the country, and even beyond its borders, following patients, interviewing them, taking their histories, and learning their life stories. Each individual life was such a unique prism of all the elements that had come together in their experience, I couldn't help but be fascinated over and over again. The hard part was knowing the benefits of the research were meant to be long-term and not to immediately help any single participant, and I couldn't stay and work with any of the people who had opened up and let me into their lives.

So I left research and returned to working directly with people, to enable them to help themselves. I worked closely with men and women in shelters and prisons. I gained training and experience in substance abuse issues. I led HIV interventions, teaching individuals how to protect themselves and their loved ones. I worked with families who had children with developmental disorders and learning disabilities. I worked with mothers on welfare, and workers on Wall Street. Money, family – these are issues we all struggle with. I worked closely with elders, facing issues of death and dying, bereavement and loss. Depression, anxiety, a family history of mental illness – as labels they sound like little to worry over, but as elements to wake up to every day they are as pressing as any life and death issue.  And then I became a registered nurse, to better support my ability to help people with all their different needs. I think our physical and mental conditions affect each other, and it is crucial to maintain both a healthy mind and a healthy body.

People stop themselves, saying there is someone out there worse off than themselves, and someone better off as well. But it has been said there is no great or small suffering, as suffering expands to the space allowed. In order to grow, we need not measure "against" but measure "within." Are you as healthy and happy as you want to be? As you deserve to be? Just as we all need our regular physical checkups, just as our cars need regularly scheduled maintenance, so do our minds and souls. This is what I do. If you'd like to talk with me, I'm available around the clock. Drop me an email or let me know if you'd like to have an online chat.  If you don't see a time on my calendar that meets your needs, let me know what works for you, and I will happily open up some more convenient options. I look forward to your possibilities.

E-mail Online Counselor Barbara Averre, MHPCS, M.A.

Sample Email - Moral Development in Children

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