Find a place in nature, where you can journal, practice relaxation techniques and mindfulness
Therapeutic Approach: Integrative, including Psychodynamic, CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), Person-Centred Therapy, Mindfulness
I use a variety of integrative therapeutic approaches, to best suit the needs of each individual client. Some of these therapies include Psychodynamic Therapy, CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy), Person-Centred Therapy, Choice Theory, Spirituality, Mindfulness and Gestalt Bodywork. In Couples Therapy, I use the Gottman Method and EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) aswell as other theories. I have given information on some of these below:
PSYCHODYNAMIC
Psychodynamic therapy looks at a person’s past in order to gain insights into their current issues. It seeks to bring the unconscious mind to consciousness, and to increase self-awareness. It looks at our formative years (early childhood) in order to establish recurring thoughts, feeling, behaviours and relationship patterns that are suggestive of underlying wounds received at a young age. When something is painful, we try to ignore it and build up defences to protect ourselves from the memory of the event/s. But some issues from the past can carry on into adulthood and influence how we behave and feel, which can then create relationship difficulties. By uncovering these deep-rooted feelings, we can follow the thread to current feelings and thoughts, in order to resolve them. Psychodynamic therapy can help people with emotional and relationship difficulties, both with ourselves and others.
CBT (COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY)
CBT is an evidence-based therapy which has been widely researched, and has been shown to be effective with a range of problems. It’s a form of psychotherapy which combines cognitive (thinking) and behavioural therapies. This approach is based on the idea that how we perceive situations influences how we feel emotionally and then how we respond (behave). CBT looks at how our thoughts determine our emotions and our behaviours. So negative thoughts create negative feelings, which in turn may result in unhelpful and destructive behaviour. By identifying and challenging our distressing and distorted thinking patterns, we can move towards more balanced thoughts, and healthier feelings and behaviours.
CBT is usually focused on the here and now, where the client and therapist work together, in a collaborative relationship, to identify and understand problems. From there, depending on what they want to achieve, specific therapy goals and practical skills can be created to enable the client to work through their issues. Throughout therapy sessions these goals and strategies will be reviewed and monitored.
The sessions can be very empowering for the client, as they take an active part, learning new skills, using their own resources, and problem solving. Between sessions the client can practice what they have learned, and will have work to complete. This will help build on progress being made in sessions. The overall aim is for the client to credit improvement in their problem to their own efforts, in collaboration with the counsellor.
Research has shown Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to be highly effective, and has been proven to work. CBT can help with: Anxiety, Anger, Chronic Pain, Depression, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Low Self-Esteem, Panic Attacks, PTSD, Stress, Work Related Stress, and much more.
PERSON-CENTRED THERAPY
Person-Centred Therapy, founded by Carl Rogers, is one of the Humanistic approaches of Psychotherapy. The Humanistic approach emphasizes people’s capacity to make rational choices and develop to their maximum potential. Rogers believed that, given the right conditions, a person can reach their full potential and become their true self, which he called ‘self-actualisation’. This actualisation process is innate and accessible to everyone. He believed that human beings are intrinsically good and, given the right conditions, they had the capacity to move towards a position of health and growth and achieve their full potential.
Person-centred Approach focuses on the idea of self-concept, which refers to the consistent and organised set of beliefs and perceptions a person has about themselves. These form a core component of our total experience and influence our perception of the world. Person-centred counselling acknowledges that our self-concept can become displaced if striving too hard to belong and be accepted by those around us. the ability to develop towards their full potential can become blocked or distorted by certain life experiences, particularly those experiences which affect our sense of value.
As humans, one’s sense of worth is conditional on approval by important people in one’s life. We handle any conditional acceptance shown to us by gradually and unconsciously integrating these conditions into our own self-image. Because we desire positive regard from the people in our lives, it is often easier to become this accepted type of person. In order to fit in and be acceptable, we need to restrict our range of emotional responses, thoughts and behaviours. To be anything else, or to be different, could see us losing that positive regard from others. Gradually, our identity (judgements, meanings, experiences), can become replaced with the ideals of others. As a consequence, we stay imprisoned in the persona that we feel is the most acceptable to others.
Person-Centred counselling focuses on exploring these conditions of worth and aims at helping the client to find their true self. Through a supportive environment, clients can strengthen and expand their own identity, and start to separate themselves from their developed ideas of how they should be. With the emergence of the authentic self, a person’s creativity and freedom is awakened, in addition to personal growth, and self-actualisation.
What is person-centred counselling?
Person-Centred Approach is holistic and sees someone as a whole person, rather than a problem or set of medical problems. It is non-directive, clients solve their problems themselves, and everything starts with the client’s experience. And it believes Individuals have a drive to self-actualise, and a desire to feel loved and valued by others. Person-Centred counselling doesn’t rely on intellectual knowledge, techniques or interventions. Instead, changes are believed to occur through the experience of a relationship between the therapist and the client. The Psychotherapist will aim to use the conditions as set down by Carl Rogers, focusing on the importance of being genuine, empathetic and non-judgmental, on the therapist’s part in an effort to promote change. Where other psychotherapeutic approaches see the therapist as the expert, in this approach there is more emphasis placed on the client being the expert in themselves. It deals with the ways in which individuals perceive themselves consciously, rather than how a counsellor can interpret their unconscious thoughts or ideas. The therapist encourages the client to explore and understand themselves and their problems, and to help the client to recognise their own capacity for not only self-healing but personal growth too. This empowering concept believes the client is capable of resolving their own issues, and moving forward, when the correct support and opportunity is provided.
The Therapeutic Relationship is the bond between client and therapist as they collaborate on solving the client’s problems. The environment is one where a client feels both physically and emotionally free from threat. There are three conditions believed to help achieve this environment. To help you achieve self-actualisation, the person-centred therapist will offer:
By offering a safe, comforting environment, this helps build a trustworthy relationship in which you can feel free and supported to disclose whatever is troubling you. The client is able to understand the past experiences that have impacted the way they feel about themselves or their abilities and take the steps to positive change. This approach can help the client to reconnect with their inner values sense of self-worth, and self-confidence. Over time it will help you to discover your own abilities and autonomy to help you find your own way to move forward and progress.
The person-centred approach can also help the client to:
PSYCHODYNAMIC
Psychodynamic therapy looks at a person’s past in order to gain insights into their current issues. It seeks to bring the unconscious mind to consciousness, and to increase self-awareness. It looks at our formative years (early childhood) in order to establish recurring thoughts, feeling, behaviours and relationship patterns that are suggestive of underlying wounds received at a young age. When something is painful, we try to ignore it and build up defences to protect ourselves from the memory of the event/s. But some issues from the past can carry on into adulthood and influence how we behave and feel, which can then create relationship difficulties. By uncovering these deep-rooted feelings, we can follow the thread to current feelings and thoughts, in order to resolve them. Psychodynamic therapy can help people with emotional and relationship difficulties, both with ourselves and others.
CBT (COGNITIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY)
CBT is an evidence-based therapy which has been widely researched, and has been shown to be effective with a range of problems. It’s a form of psychotherapy which combines cognitive (thinking) and behavioural therapies. This approach is based on the idea that how we perceive situations influences how we feel emotionally and then how we respond (behave). CBT looks at how our thoughts determine our emotions and our behaviours. So negative thoughts create negative feelings, which in turn may result in unhelpful and destructive behaviour. By identifying and challenging our distressing and distorted thinking patterns, we can move towards more balanced thoughts, and healthier feelings and behaviours.
CBT is usually focused on the here and now, where the client and therapist work together, in a collaborative relationship, to identify and understand problems. From there, depending on what they want to achieve, specific therapy goals and practical skills can be created to enable the client to work through their issues. Throughout therapy sessions these goals and strategies will be reviewed and monitored.
The sessions can be very empowering for the client, as they take an active part, learning new skills, using their own resources, and problem solving. Between sessions the client can practice what they have learned, and will have work to complete. This will help build on progress being made in sessions. The overall aim is for the client to credit improvement in their problem to their own efforts, in collaboration with the counsellor.
Research has shown Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to be highly effective, and has been proven to work. CBT can help with: Anxiety, Anger, Chronic Pain, Depression, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Low Self-Esteem, Panic Attacks, PTSD, Stress, Work Related Stress, and much more.
PERSON-CENTRED THERAPY
Person-Centred Therapy, founded by Carl Rogers, is one of the Humanistic approaches of Psychotherapy. The Humanistic approach emphasizes people’s capacity to make rational choices and develop to their maximum potential. Rogers believed that, given the right conditions, a person can reach their full potential and become their true self, which he called ‘self-actualisation’. This actualisation process is innate and accessible to everyone. He believed that human beings are intrinsically good and, given the right conditions, they had the capacity to move towards a position of health and growth and achieve their full potential.
Person-centred Approach focuses on the idea of self-concept, which refers to the consistent and organised set of beliefs and perceptions a person has about themselves. These form a core component of our total experience and influence our perception of the world. Person-centred counselling acknowledges that our self-concept can become displaced if striving too hard to belong and be accepted by those around us. the ability to develop towards their full potential can become blocked or distorted by certain life experiences, particularly those experiences which affect our sense of value.
As humans, one’s sense of worth is conditional on approval by important people in one’s life. We handle any conditional acceptance shown to us by gradually and unconsciously integrating these conditions into our own self-image. Because we desire positive regard from the people in our lives, it is often easier to become this accepted type of person. In order to fit in and be acceptable, we need to restrict our range of emotional responses, thoughts and behaviours. To be anything else, or to be different, could see us losing that positive regard from others. Gradually, our identity (judgements, meanings, experiences), can become replaced with the ideals of others. As a consequence, we stay imprisoned in the persona that we feel is the most acceptable to others.
Person-Centred counselling focuses on exploring these conditions of worth and aims at helping the client to find their true self. Through a supportive environment, clients can strengthen and expand their own identity, and start to separate themselves from their developed ideas of how they should be. With the emergence of the authentic self, a person’s creativity and freedom is awakened, in addition to personal growth, and self-actualisation.
What is person-centred counselling?
Person-Centred Approach is holistic and sees someone as a whole person, rather than a problem or set of medical problems. It is non-directive, clients solve their problems themselves, and everything starts with the client’s experience. And it believes Individuals have a drive to self-actualise, and a desire to feel loved and valued by others. Person-Centred counselling doesn’t rely on intellectual knowledge, techniques or interventions. Instead, changes are believed to occur through the experience of a relationship between the therapist and the client. The Psychotherapist will aim to use the conditions as set down by Carl Rogers, focusing on the importance of being genuine, empathetic and non-judgmental, on the therapist’s part in an effort to promote change. Where other psychotherapeutic approaches see the therapist as the expert, in this approach there is more emphasis placed on the client being the expert in themselves. It deals with the ways in which individuals perceive themselves consciously, rather than how a counsellor can interpret their unconscious thoughts or ideas. The therapist encourages the client to explore and understand themselves and their problems, and to help the client to recognise their own capacity for not only self-healing but personal growth too. This empowering concept believes the client is capable of resolving their own issues, and moving forward, when the correct support and opportunity is provided.
The Therapeutic Relationship is the bond between client and therapist as they collaborate on solving the client’s problems. The environment is one where a client feels both physically and emotionally free from threat. There are three conditions believed to help achieve this environment. To help you achieve self-actualisation, the person-centred therapist will offer:
- Congruence - the counsellor must be completely genuine, honest and transparent in how they experience you and your world.
- Empathy - the counsellor must strive to understand the client's experience, seeing your viewpoint as if they were you.
- Unconditional positive regard - the counsellor must be non-judgemental, accepting and valuing you.
By offering a safe, comforting environment, this helps build a trustworthy relationship in which you can feel free and supported to disclose whatever is troubling you. The client is able to understand the past experiences that have impacted the way they feel about themselves or their abilities and take the steps to positive change. This approach can help the client to reconnect with their inner values sense of self-worth, and self-confidence. Over time it will help you to discover your own abilities and autonomy to help you find your own way to move forward and progress.
The person-centred approach can also help the client to:
- find closer agreement between an idealised self and actual self
- achieve better self-understanding and awareness
- release feelings of defensiveness, insecurity and guilt
- have a greater ability to trust oneself
- develop healthier relationships
- see improvement in self-expression
- achieve a healthy sense of change overall
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