Hanging in There by Sigmund F

Years ago I took an honours degree course in psychology and sociology. I followed this with training as a psychotherapist. Psychotherapy takes many forms but the main form is councelling.
Counselling takes place when an outsider listens sympathetically to an individual talking about his problems.
Putting his (or her) problems into words can have three effects:

One - the individual gets relief in unburdening himself.
Two - the individual sees a way forward.
Three - the counsellor - identifying areas where the
individual could be trapped in his thinking -
suggests strategies for escape.

Typically a full-time counsellor will see thirty to forty clients in a week and have perhaps a hundred names on his register. With such a large group one has to ask how a counsellor could establish a sympathetic relationship with each individual let alone remember their history. In my view it is not possible. (One of the Frasier episodes humorously highlighted this problem. Frasier has loads of new clients passing through his office and to each he gives the same spiel - about the client and himself setting out on a unique empathetic voyage of exploration).

For this reason I earned my living elsewhere and limited my counselling to a few clients. With a small number I had time to mull over their situations and for the client to feel, and rightly, that I had his or her interests at heart.
But perhaps this wonderful world of blogging has made formal psychotherapy redundant? Individuals can get relief unburdening themselves on the web by putting their problems into words. And with luck they will get an empathetic response and advice from a kindred spirit.