I'm sure if you read the faq's floating around you'd see a lot of answers for the questions you've asked, including the average amount of outbreaks people get.
People say stress can instigate an outbreak, or physical over-exhertion, even changing laundry detergent to a different brand, but everyone is different so it's hard to say. The next few times it happens to you, go over what's been going on in your life and keep a diary, and eventually I'm sure you'll see a pattern. To lessen the outbreaks, there are medications you can take but I'd recommend seeing a doctor about it; they'll know best.
As for counselling... I'm sure some people do, but for the most part if you have someone you can talk to about it (in my case it was my partner at the time) who can give you much-needed support, that helps quite a bit. I personally recommend talking about it with SOMEone, simply because when you talk about it you learn to accept it, and only after accepting it does healing commence.
Sex-wise, I'm sure it will affect you initially, because you're dealing with learning that you have this STI and like anyone else will feel 'tainted', for lack of a better word. Everyone has their own healing times, so that's hard to say. Personally, it only started to improve for me around the time when I heard people cracking herpes-related jokes and I genuinely laughed with them. Also, in some cases it *may* affect how intercourse feels, though again each person is different.
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