What is Counselling?
"The goal of therapy is to participate in a conversation that continually loosens and opens up, rather than constricts and closes down. Through therapeutic conversations, fixed meanings and behaviours…are given room, broadened, shifted, and changed." - Anderson and Goolishian, 1988
Counselling is a unique experience for everyone – that’s because you, your relationship or family are all unique!
The terms counselling, therapy and psychotherapy are all terms used to describe the process of meeting with a trained therapeutic professional who will help you work out what’s going on for you, that’s causing you emotional discomfort/distress or causing you to think or behave in ways not consistent with your preferred way of thinking or behaving.
Counselling will help you work out why you are feeling and/or acting in a certain way and help you in changing unhelpful mental habits, non- beneficial patterned behaviours and disabling thoughts and emotions.
Counselling is about providing you with a safe and trusting environment whereby you feel comfortable talking about issues that are of concern to you and/or your loved ones. Counselling is a private and confidential process whereby everything talked about is kept confidential. There are some exceptions to this that I will talk about during the first meeting, but I will always discuss with you first, if I need to break your confidentiality.
Counselling can help you...
- Explore emotions, thoughts and behaviours, which may be puzzling, uncomfortable or distressing for you. Understanding more about your thoughts, emotions and behaviours can help you gain more control over them.
- Improve your relationship with yourself and others including your family/whanau and loved ones.
- Acquaint yourself with what you value in life and find new meanings, understandings and awareness of yourself and others.
- Find peace, contentment and fulfilment through reducing stress/anxiety and expanding possibilities.
- Bring about positive change in your life and help you move forward towards the life you want to and deserve.
- Equip yourself with beneficial parenting strategies, so you can be the best parent you can for your children
- Create for yourself and your family a fulfilling life
What counselling is not
- Counselling is not about diagnosing or pathologizing you, or encouraging you to comply to ‘normative’ standards
- Counselling is not about giving advice or telling you what to do in your life, however, together we will explore a number of possibilities that you can then decide upon
- Counselling is not about taking sides or disrespecting anyone in a counselling relationship
- Counselling is not a process to convince a third party (a judge, lawyer, CYF’s social worker) that your behaviour/s have changed, but a counsellor can validate that you are or have attended counselling