THERAPY & APPROACHES

How Counselling and Therapy Can Help / My Approach /

How counselling and therapy can help

Somatic Experiencing (SE) Approach / Individual / Couple / Pre-Marital / Family Counselling / How many sessions will I need?

How Counselling and Therapy Can Help

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by negative emotions, reacted by losing your temper with a loved-one and then felt sorry, lost, and helpless? Unresolved problems can result in a wide range of physical, emotional and behavioural issues such as loss of appetite, insomnia, depression, reaching for the booze or even domestic violence, to name just a few. Inevitably these situations take a toll on us personally and on all our close relationships, leading to further negativity and additional problems. Often you can’t put your finger on the root cause of your problems, you just know that something is wrong and changes must be made – but what and how?

It’s time to reach out.

Don’t think that your current problems are unique or insurmountable. With over 20 years of counselling experience, I’ve helped many clients deal with a wide-range of problems. A short-list of the most common issues I’ve addressed include:

Relationships (e.g. interpersonal, marital, domestic/family disputes, parenting, extra-marital affairs)
Emotions (e.g. stress, fear, anxiety, depression)
Behaviours (e.g. anger management, substance abuse, financial management, addictive behaviours)
Life crises (e.g. financial problems, trauma during childhood/past events, bereavement)

Although distressing, these “presenting’ issues are often only symptomatic of deeper, underlying problems that are the root causes of current problems. Such deeper problems may have existed, unresolved, for years. Some you may not yet be consciously aware of. Others you may recognize as old concerns, but not realize their casual relationship with your present problems.

Whether you are an individual, couple or family, I will talk you through your emotions and experiences with non-judgmental compassion and empathy in a safe and confidential environment to help you fully understand the underlying causes to your current predicament. We can then work together to make changes that will improve your life.

Please scroll down for more information about my approaches regarding individual, couple and family counselling.

INDIVIDUAL

(SE)

Approach

COUPLE

PRE-MARITAL

FAMILY

How

many

sessions?

Individual

Like other animals, humans tend to avoid threatening situations. Unfortunately, deliberate or subconscious failure to fully address problematic emotions or behaviour normally leads to greater problems in the future. My focus is to help you identify these unresolved matters – the root causes of your current problems. Having gained a deeper understanding, we can identify appropriate coping and improvement strategies. As no one approach suits all, I use a variety of professionally proven integrative and holistic counselling and therapeutic approaches specific to the needs of each client.

Somatic Experiencing (SE) Approach

Somatic Experiencing (SE) is an alternative, professionally recognized, therapeutic approach used with clients who experience symptoms (signs/ messages in the form of physical responses triggered during the process of recalling issues /negative experiences), such as light-headedness, stiffness, numbness, trembling, breathing difficulties, aches and pains, stomach churning, for which there is no apparent medical remedy, but which may be indicative of unresolved problems such as traumatic experiences. SE can reactivate your body to overcome autonomic nervous responses to generate sensations that assist in managing and reducing those autonomic bodily responses.

SE Approach

Couple

If you are in a relationship, whether homosexual or heterosexual, you might seek joint counselling if you have been experiencing any of the following relationship problems:

Frequent, repeated, or unresolvable arguments
Difficulties with sexual intimacy
Extra-relational affairs or other romantic infidelities
Lack of trust or jealousy
Communication difficulties
Unfulfilled emotional needs or persistent negative feelings
Conflicts over parenting or dealing with other relatives
Disagreement over financial or career issues
Addiction or other disruptive behaviour that hurts the relationship

The success of couple counselling depends ultimately on a couples’ commitment and effort to mend and nurture their relationship. That’s easier said than done as all sorts of obstacles get in the way. Feelings such as hurt, fear, frustration, embarrassment and guilt can make it difficult to confront a partner over the issues that come between you. As such we may need to explore and gain better understanding within the context of the relationship before moving on to remove barriers and tackle the issues.

[Note: Counselling of both partners togeather at the same time maybe inappropriate in some circumstances, e.g. domestic violence, confidentiality issues. In such cases, both partners are encouraged to seek indidvidual counselling, at least initially.]

Couple

Pre-Marital

Getting hitched is a big step. Naturally we all hope for a happy marriage, but being realistic we must recognize that marriage can bring unhappiness and end in divorce. You should consider pre-marital counselling if you are a couple planning to marry and;

Already struggle to resolve issues between you,
Want to test your compatibility over a wide range of issues you are likely to experience during marriage,
Are concerned about the changes that will come with your new status,
Want to develop skills to help you successfully navigate your way through marriage.

Pre-marital counselling is a challenging, rewarding and fulfilling adventure based on the theory that foreseeing and preventing problems is better than curing them. Characterized by unconditional commitment and sacrificial love, marriage should be a wonderful experience for each partner, but it is a union of two individuals from different backgrounds and with different expectations. Both spouses have been shaped by their life experiences leading to predetermined ideas of how to deal with a range of important marital issues. Managing joint finances, if or when to have children, dealing with the in- laws, and allocation of household responsibilities, are just a few examples of issues that seemed manageable before marriage but can generate significant conflict afterwards.

My approach is to explore both partners’ views in a number of areas that frequently cause marital discord. (You will be expected to get your mind working as you answer the questionnaires.) Areas in which you have the greatest divergence of opinions, and therefore the biggest potential for conflict, can thus be identified. We will then discuss the reasons why each partner holds their respective opinions in order to increase mutual understanding, explore middle ground and ultimately find ways to deal with differences and conflict.

Healthy discussion before marriage could pre-empt a lot of problems.

Family

I see family as not only diverse and fluid. Far more than the sum of its individual members, a family is an unfinished symphony of fluid and overlapping relationships and dynamic behavioural patterns. Being such a diverse and complex system, it’s unsurprising that it sometimes gets stuck and causes unnecessary friction. Indeed, family problems can be amongst the most tenacious and resistant to change because their root causes are embedded in unseen and complicated structures with individuals being oblivious to how they themselves contribute to the problems that plague them. Finger pointing and blaming others are common.

My approach is structural and systemic. Through family group discussions and interaction, I attempt to look beyond individual personalities to understand the dynamics of the family as a whole, the role played by each family member within it, and its strengths and stuck patterns. What keeps people stuck is their great difficulty in seeing their own participation (contribution or lack of it) in the overall dynamic, Once self awareness is improved, it often amazes me how willing they are to make changes, either to their own behaviour or their reaction to the behaviour of others, and so improve the well-being of the whole family.