What is counselling?

What is counselling?
Counselling is a private face-to-face conversation with a specially trained person aimed at helping you to help yourself.

Counselling encourages you to explore possible solutions to your problems. HIV and Aids counselling provided at government VCT sites is free and confidential. This means the counsellor cannot disclose the results of your test to anyone else without your permission.

Counselling before HIV and Aids testing is vital so that you can make an informed decision after getting all the facts whether you still want to be tested.

After testing has been completed, you will be counselled again before you are informed of your HIV status. This assists you to cope with the HIV test result, whether it is positive or negative.

If you find out at an early stage that you are infected with HIV, you can:

• Learn more about the virus and how it affects your body;
• Look after yourself so you stay healthy for as long as possible;
• Get information and counselling on how to live positively;
• Learn to recognise the signs of opportunistic infections and how to combat them;
• Make sure you do not infect anyone else;
• Learn how to manage the stress in your life; and
• Find out about anti-retroviral treatment and how chances of mother-to-child transmission can be reduced.