Counselling is a process which helps you to gain insight into your feelings and behaviour and to create positive change, if necessary. The word 'counselling' covers a broad spectrum, from someone who is highly trained to someone who uses counselling skills (listening, reflecting back what you say, or clarifying) as part of another role, such as nursing. We use the term here to mean a talking therapy delivered by a trained professional.
Sessions usually take place every one or two weeks for a prescribed period of time. Making this regular commitment gives you a better chance of finding out why you are having difficulties.
HOW COUNSELLING SYDNEY PSYCHOTHERAPY CAN HELP
There are different types of COUNSELLING for different reasons. You may seek MARRIAGE COUNSELLING or COUPLES COUNSELLING because of difficulties you've been experiencing in your relationship. Or you may want help dealing with feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety or low self-worth that don't seem to be connected to any particular event.
Some of our clients come to us following the death of a loved one. For example, recently one of our clients came to us as a referral from her doctor. Her brother died from cancer 2 years ago and she had not been aware of having any psychological difficulties before. Although she felt she had gone through the grieving period, she still found herself deeply upset most of the time and unable to concentrate during the day, often crying in the evenings and unable to sleep at night. Obviously her work was suffering and it was putting a strain on her marriage.
Not knowing where to start, she discussed this with her doctor, who referred her to Sydney Psychotherapy. We offered eight sessions of counselling and although she was not sure, at first, whether she would be able to talk freely to a stranger, she soon became more comfortable with us and was soon able to express feelings about the loss of her brother that she couldn't trust anyone else with. She gradually felt better able to concentrate on her everyday life and felt less distressed.
Counselling can also help you overcome mental health problems, such as depression or an EATING DISORDER, even if you are already getting other kinds of help from a doctor or psychiatrist. It can also help you come to terms with an ongoing physical problem, illness or disability. Counselling can also be a means of coping with physical symptoms or complaints that doctors can't alleviate.
Another of our clients had been experiencing severe ANXIETY ATTACKS, which he described as initially thinking he was having a heart attack. Surprising, but reassuringly, his medical checkups suggested he had no physical ailments pointing towards his heart. Nevertheless, he still continued to get these "panic attacks". His doctor suggested his symptoms might have a psychological element, and our client then approached us through a referral. Although he had felt reluctant to consider this before, he knew that no physical cause had been found, so decided to try it.
Following an assessment, we offered him counselling once a week. He found the assessment interesting, because it got him thinking about connections between different events in his life. At first he felt rather suspicious, but gradually came to feel that he really was being offered a confidential space in which he could voice any of his feelings - however difficult. He gradually got in touch with very angry feelings that he had been harbouring for a long time and came to believe that he had been suppressing these in order to be nice to people and not upset them.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF COUNSELLING?
There are several types of counselling that follow similar lines to the different types of PSYCHOTHERAPY. Each model has its own theory of human development and its own way of working. Depending on the client, at Sydney Psychotherapy we may work in an 'eclectic' way, which means that we will draw on elements of several different models when working with clients or we may decide on an 'integrative' methodology, which draws on and blends two or more specific types.
From the client's point of view, perhaps the most obvious difference between the types of counselling is whether the counsellor is directive (suggesting courses of action and perhaps giving 'homework' exercises) or non-directive (with the client taking the lead in what's discussed). While it's not possible to include all the various types available, the most popular styles we use at Sydney Psychotherapy are as follows:
NON-DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING
PSYCHODYNAMIC COUNSELLING
This is based on the idea that past experiences have a bearing on experiences and feelings in the present, and that important relationships, perhaps from early childhood, may be replayed with other people later in life. It translates the principles and insights of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy into once-a-week counselling.
We will usually play as neutral a figure as possible, giving little information ourselves, making it more likely that important relationships (past or present) will be reflected in the relationship between the client and the counsellor. This relationship is therefore an important source of insight for both parties, and helps the client to 'work through' their difficulties. Developing a trusting and reliable relationship with Sydney Psychotherapy is essential for this work.
CLIENT-CENTRED OR PERSON-CENTRED COUNSELLING
Here we provide three 'core conditions' (or essential attributes) that are, in themselves, therapeutic. These are:
* empathy (the ability to imagine oneself in another person's position)
* unconditional positive regard (warm, positive feelings, regardless of the person's behaviour)
* congruence (honesty and openness).
Again, we use the relationship with the client as a means of healing and change.
TRANSPERSONAL COUNSELLING
This is an integrative and holistic approach that utilises creative imagination. It assumes a spiritual dimension to life and human nature. It also presupposes the interconnectedness of all beings with a higher spiritual power, and specifically addresses the link between the two.
Transpersonal counselling emphasises personal empowerment. It takes account of the client's past experiences, but also looks to the future and what is likely to unfold for them, the challenges they may face and the qualities that need to emerge in them to meet those challenges. Its basic belief is that whatever the hardships of human experience, the core essence, or soul, remains undamaged.
TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS COUNSELLING
Transactional analysis counselling emphasises people's personal responsibility for their feelings, thoughts and behaviour. It believes people can change, if they actively decide to replace their usual patterns of behaviour with new ones.
Here Sydney Psychotherapy offers:
* 'permission' (for new messages about yourself and the world)
* 'protection' (when changing behaviour and thoughts feels risky)
* 'potency' (to deliver what he or she promised).
Planning the goals of the counselling is part of the process. The focus is on uncovering the 'life scripts' (life plans) that reflect the messages the client was given as a child. This style of counselling teaches the client to identify in which of the following modes he or she is operating, at any given time:
* the 'child' (replaying their childhood)
* the 'parent' (copied from parents or parent-figures)
* the 'adult' (appropriate to the present situation).
EXISTENTIAL COUNSELLING
Here Sydney Psychotherapy helps clients to clarify, think about and understand life, so that they can live it well. It encourages them to focus on the basic assumptions they make about it, and about themselves, so they can come to terms with life as it is. It allows them to make sense of their existence.
The counselling focuses the client on how much they already take charge of their life, and not on what they are doing wrong. At the same time, it takes note of any real limitations, so that they can make choices based on a true view of the options available.
PERSONAL CONSTRUCT COUNSELLING
This is based on the idea that nobody can know absolute truth. Instead, each person constructs their idea of the truth from their own experiences, and this affects the way they see the world. The problem is that people can get stuck with a view of things that prevents them from living life to the full, because they can't find any alternative ways of seeing things. Personal construct counselling helps people to look at different ways of behaving that may be useful in changing the way they see the world.
GESTALT COUNSELLING
This is a directive type of counselling, focusing on "gestalten "(patterns of thought, feeling and activity). Here we encourages people to have an active awareness of their present situation, and also incorporate communication that goes beyond words. A key part of gestalt counselling is the dramatisation, or acting out, of important conflicts in a person's life. This could involve using two or more chairs, for instance, so that they can physically take up different positions to represent different aspects of themselves.
DIRECTIVE COUNSELLING
RATIONAL-EMOTIVE BEHAVIOURAL COUNSELLING
This takes the view that people have two main goals in life: to stay alive and to be happy. It aims to remove the obstacles that people place in their own way, and also to achieve a healthy balance between short-term and long-term goals.
COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY
At Sydney Psychotherapy we use this to understand the way people's beliefs about themselves shape how they interpret experiences. The objective is to change self-defeating or irrational beliefs and behaviours by altering negative ways of thinking.
Our clients learn to monitor their emotional upsets and what triggers them, to identify self-defeating thoughts, to see the connections between their beliefs, feelings and behaviour, to look at the evidence for and against these thoughts and beliefs, and to think in a way that is more realistic and less negative.
We will usually give the client tasks or homework to do between sessions. This could mean recording thoughts and feelings, or doing something that tests out a basic assumption about themselves. This might mean, for instance, going to the shops when their fear is that they might panic.
HOW LONG DOES COUNSELLING LAST?
Counselling can be either open-ended or time-limited, depending on what is right for the client. At Sydney Psychotherapy, we believe in choosing a focus for the counselling and subsequently work towards a specific ending. We will make an assessment with you over the first few sessions and discuss the length of the 'contract' together.
Time-limited work may well clarify the problems that bring you into counselling, so you can decide whether further help would be a good idea. If you want to, you can always ask to be referred for longer-term counselling or psychotherapy when the original sessions come to an end.
WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY?
Counselling and psychotherapy can differ in the length of time they may take and in their intensity. This means both the frequency and the psychological depth of the sessions. At one end of the scale would be brief counselling, once a week or less, for one particular problem. At the other end would be psychotherapy, three times a week or more, conducted over several years.
Counselling is regarded as more 'supportive' and psychotherapy as deeper-reaching, but clearly there's a large area of overlap between the two. Psychotherapists have usually undergone a longer or more intensive training, however, equipping them to work in a more intensive way, with more sessions a week and with more deep-seated issues.
Counselling is often seen as most appropriate for people who have a particular difficulty they want to deal with, or who are reacting to a distressing or stressful event, such as a bereavement or divorce. Someone who has longer-term difficulties, which can't be linked to any particular event, may perhaps be better suited to longer-term or deeper work, such as psychotherapy.
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN UNDERSTANDING HOW COUNSELLING OR PSYCHOTHERAPY APPLIES TO YOU, CALL US NOW FOR AN OBLIGATION FREE AND CONFIDENTIAL DISCUSSION. CONTACT US NOW ON 0468 484 282.
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