Counselling Methods for Mental Health and Wellbeing
Creating change, personal growth, healing from trauma and improving relationships is often a bumpy road. No matter where you are on your journey: resisting change, in crisis, lost and confused, or on the road to discovery, Holistic Counselling can support you.
Holistic Counselling is based on a foundation of Person-Centered theory with a strong focus on a authentic counselling relationship. In other words, you are supported and guided towards your own self-healing potential.
In addition to this, a combination of approaches that embrace all aspects of a person are required for lasting change to occur. To achieve this lasting change we must meet our challenges and awaken to our insights within the present moment.
In your holistic counselling sessions you will safely explore and connect to, your Body, your Creativity, your Story and your Awareness.
Holistic Counselling is based on a foundation of Person-Centered theory with a strong focus on a authentic counselling relationship. In other words, you are supported and guided towards your own self-healing potential.
In addition to this, a combination of approaches that embrace all aspects of a person are required for lasting change to occur. To achieve this lasting change we must meet our challenges and awaken to our insights within the present moment.
In your holistic counselling sessions you will safely explore and connect to, your Body, your Creativity, your Story and your Awareness.
The body may be described as the Sixth Sense, whilst it is not separate from the mind, it certainly does speak another language. Some clues to this language exist in common expressions, "I'm sick to the stomach", I can't swallow that idea", "my head's going to burst", "my blood is boiling". Learning this subtle language and connecting to our breathing, our physical reactions to emotional triggers, our posture, our 'fight, flight freeze' response, our pain and illnesses, provide us greater understanding of our emotions, our coping mechanisms and our ability to self-sooth in response to distress.
Tapping into your creativity means more than simply being creative (drawing and painting certainly isn’t everybody’s thing), rather it is about being curious about your potential. Finding new ways of achieving things that are important to you. Expressing yourself authentically. Being open to creative solutions to life's challenges stimulates psychological flexibility, so vital to ones mental health. The use of our creative right brain function helps us tap into our unconscious (or subconscious), leading to greater self knowledge, growth and healing.
When I use the term ‘story’ I am speaking to the narrative of our life. All our experiences, how we remember them and the way in which they shape who we are today. In order to move past old wounds, habits or negative patterns and create new values, meaning and purpose we must uncover how they are impacting our life within the present. This invites the potential to rewrite and re-member this narrative to better serve us in the present.
Self awareness is about connecting to your 'personal agency' (being in charge of who you are and what you do), it's about getting honest with yourself, your vulnerabilities, your strengths, your resources, your spirituality (if that’s important to you), your values, your relationships and really owning all aspects of yourself (even the parts you wish to change) without judgment. It's about connecting to your Body, Story, and Creativity, allowing you to awaken to your personal insights and take control of your life.
Additional Processes
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
A mindfulness based process that incorporates the principals of mindfulness with scientific and cognitive processes assisting you to change old patterns and better manage stress and obstacles in your life.
Relationship Therapy
Whether you are newly married, contemplating a deeper commitment, in a same sex relationship or have been married or committed for many years, couples counselling can support you. On average, couples wait for around 7 years before reaching out for help, often utilising relationship counselling as their 'last ditch effort. With post graduate training in Couples Therapy, I can help nurture your relationship, manage conflict, navigate infidelity (emotional and physical), increase physical and emotional intimacy, create individual and mutual goals and truly connect on an empathic level.
Somatic Therapy & Focusing: A process that facilitates connection to emotions held within your body, allowing you access to your inner wisdom. "On one level Focusing is a bodily felt way of knowing and assessing a situation or a problem, one that is ruled not by the intellect or reason but by intuition or gut feeling. This visceral (gut) feeling is almost unconscious; it knows something, but that something may be unclear to the conscious mind, like a vague or uneasy feeling in the body. That is, until you focus on it. Then everything starts to become clear." (2)
Focusing can help you to:
Art Therapy is the creative expression of inner material (what’s going on for you ‘just beneath the surface’) encouraged through the use of various art mediums, images and words. Art therapy processes do not relate to one’s artistic ability; creative outcomes are symbolic, metaphoric, often abstract and deeply personal. Your expression will not be judged, analysed or interpreted, rather we will work together to uncover the symbolic meaning to you.
At any stage throughout your counselling sessions you have the right to proceed with or decline any process offered. The choice is always yours.
Mindfulness Based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
A mindfulness based process that incorporates the principals of mindfulness with scientific and cognitive processes assisting you to change old patterns and better manage stress and obstacles in your life.
Relationship Therapy
Whether you are newly married, contemplating a deeper commitment, in a same sex relationship or have been married or committed for many years, couples counselling can support you. On average, couples wait for around 7 years before reaching out for help, often utilising relationship counselling as their 'last ditch effort. With post graduate training in Couples Therapy, I can help nurture your relationship, manage conflict, navigate infidelity (emotional and physical), increase physical and emotional intimacy, create individual and mutual goals and truly connect on an empathic level.
Somatic Therapy & Focusing: A process that facilitates connection to emotions held within your body, allowing you access to your inner wisdom. "On one level Focusing is a bodily felt way of knowing and assessing a situation or a problem, one that is ruled not by the intellect or reason but by intuition or gut feeling. This visceral (gut) feeling is almost unconscious; it knows something, but that something may be unclear to the conscious mind, like a vague or uneasy feeling in the body. That is, until you focus on it. Then everything starts to become clear." (2)
Focusing can help you to:
- trust yourself more and feel less self-critical
- learn to listen to your body, understand the metaphors within illness and ailments
- be more present and aware of Self
- have clearer boundaries and deeper connections with others
- discover new choices when you're feeling stuck
- be guided by your feelings without being overwhelmed by them; and
- take more responsibility for your own mental and physical health.
Art Therapy is the creative expression of inner material (what’s going on for you ‘just beneath the surface’) encouraged through the use of various art mediums, images and words. Art therapy processes do not relate to one’s artistic ability; creative outcomes are symbolic, metaphoric, often abstract and deeply personal. Your expression will not be judged, analysed or interpreted, rather we will work together to uncover the symbolic meaning to you.
At any stage throughout your counselling sessions you have the right to proceed with or decline any process offered. The choice is always yours.
Notes: 2) Kevin Flanagan, Everyday Genius, p.18
"Only when it's dark enough can you see the stars."
- R. W. Emerson