Short Term Counseling
“And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.” Robert Fulghum.
Sometimes people need to come for an immediate problem they are having and they just need someone to talk to and assist them to sort through what is going on.
Short term counselling can provide:
- a renewed sense of purpose and direction;
- increased self respect – merely by starting the process, you are taking charge and making it a priority to sort out some things in your life;
- an increased ability to put your thoughts and feelings into words;
- increased understanding of the way that communication can build relationships and an enhanced ability to communicate more effectively.
Long Term Counseling
A commitment to longer treatment is likely to be appropriate to deal with longstanding conditions and a good therapeutic relationship enables you to develop a deeper understanding of yourself. It is helpful for people who are aware that they have difficulties that date back to their childhood.
Therapy can help you to experience and explore previously intolerable feelings and can develop your capacity to be more emotionally accessible and responsive to others. Limiting thought patterns and unproductive behaviours may be uncovered and explored. The result is you begin to function as the author in your own life.
Optional use of bodywork / touch
Direct bodywork can be a powerful tool when used with talk therapy to combat the effects of trauma. If you choose to enter in to longer-term psychotherapy, I may sometimes work verbally in the relationship with you and I am also trained to engage directly with your dynamic bodily experience. This includes us reflecting together on your patterns of breathing, posture, movement, and also working with body image and touch where appropriate. Some clients have experienced a lack of physical holding when they were young and with these clients verbal work alone in a secure and empathic setting is not sufficient to help “re-parent “ them.
Some clients find body – orientated psychotherapy can be helpful in balancing their nervous system, mobilizing their posture and helping explore patterns of tightening and lengthening in their bodies. This approach is particularly useful to assist with stress and increase a sense of vitality and aliveness. Other clients appreciate receiving safe and nurturing opportunities to explore what it is like to receive physical touch, that is appropriately comforting for them, when they feel distressed.
Not all people are comfortable with hands on work and so I would always expect that such touch is agreed mutually, is spoken about before anything occurs and that any issues it brings up would be worked through in the therapeutic process.
I work within the strong ethical code of practice of our association, ASPA (Australian Somatic Psychotherapy Association). I am a full clinical member of this professional body. I am also bound by our code of ethics, which clearly outlines the boundaries appropriate for a therapeutic relationship. You can read our Code of Ethics and find out more about ASPA at http://www.somaticpsych.org.au/
I am also professionally registered and quality assured through PACFA ~ the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, Inc.
Couple Counselling
One of the most frequent reasons people come to counseling is to get help with relationship problems. Difficulties in this area can cause significant distress for people. My role is not to make judgments on who is right and who is wrong, but to assist you to get more clarity about your relationship, so that you both can work out where you want to go from here and perhaps whether you want to stay together or separate. Sometimes the significant relationships we have had in our lives haven’t provided us with the experiences we have needed to learn how to have satisfying relationships. Counseling is sometimes about learning to make safe and nurturing relationships or re-learning about feelings that have, up to now, had to be stifled in order to deal with life.
Couple counseling can help you:
- understand the relationship you currently share with your partner
- rediscover your attraction for each other
- find out what you both want now from your relationship and from each other
- understand how you each have contributed to whatever your relationship has become
- discuss what you feel about each other now
- work out what you are prepared to do to make the relationship work.
Whichever you require, short term counseling / couple counseling or a longer term more in depth approach, I will work with you to sensitively understand what you most need to get out of the sessions.