Counselling for low mood: why positive thinking doesn't always help

I don’t believe in the idea that you can think your way out of feeling low, anxious, or flat. I don’t believe that repeating affirmations in the mirror fixes anything when the ground underneath you feels unsteady.

There is a lot of pressure now to stay positive. To reframe. To find the lesson. To turn discomfort into growth as quickly as possible. It is often well meant, but for many people it becomes another demand they cannot meet.

Photo by Émile Séguin

If you wake up feeling low and someone tells you to stand in front of the mirror and say “I love you,” what happens if you don’t feel it. What if the words feel hollow, awkward, or false. Do you say them anyway. Do you force it. Do you tell yourself that faking it is part of the work.

Fake it till you make it sounds encouraging. For some people it quietly turns into fake it and feel worse.

Psychology has a name for this. Toxic positivity. It describes what happens when difficult emotions are overridden by pressure to stay upbeat. It is written about widely as something that can invalidate real experience rather than support it.

Saying something you do not believe does not always build confidence. Sometimes it deepens the sense that you are failing at yet another thing. Now you are not only struggling, you are also doing positivity wrong.

Counselling for low mood is not about fixing your attitude or finding the lesson. Low mood does not mean you are broken. It does not mean you are ungrateful. It does not mean you are regressing. Often it means something is tired, hurt, or carrying more than it can manage alone.

The body keeps expecting what is no longer there. The longing, the habit, the confusion. Not because we are stuck, but because this is how we are wired.

There is a difference between kindness and pressure. Kindness allows space for how things actually are. Pressure demands a better attitude.

What counselling for low mood actually looks like

In my work, I am not interested in whether you can think positively. I am interested in whether you can be honest. Honesty creates movement. Forced optimism often creates distance, from yourself and from others.

I work in a straight-talking way. That means I will not ask you to pretend things are fine when they are not. I will not ask you to love yourself on days when that feels impossible. We start where you actually are.

If you want to know more about how I work, you can read about me and my background.

Sometimes the most honest thing you can say is “today feels heavy.” That is not negativity. That is reality. And reality is where change actually begins.