Counselling / Therapy Process
GENERAL OVERVIEW
First, we work with you to find relief from your immediate burdens. From there, we build you up so you understand what has been happening to you, and equip you with the skills you need to make the wrongs right in your life. Moving past your initial distress requires that you know you are safe, in competent and supportive care, and have a vision and the means, with us, to move into the life that you know should be yours.
SESSION OVERVIEW
COUNSELLING
Once you have selected your counsellor and the intake process is completed, our sessions can begin. At the start, there will be a getting to know each other stage. In the first session, details of your story will be discussed, and we will "meet" you in your need. If it is counselling that you require, that is, you need help to clarify your situation, we will work with you as you overcome your obstacles. The counselling approaches we will use are person centered, solution oriented, cognitive and behaviorally focused, and humanistic in nature.
COUNSELLING APPROACHES
THERAPY
In treating difficult issues, such as addictions, trauma, and insults to identity, we engage with the individual in the totality of their person, which consists of three parts: the mind, emotions, and the body. Each part speaks, but the mind, which is usually primary, doesn't naturally understand or acknowledge the importance of what the other two are saying. To get at emotions, we employ a Emotion Focused Therapy perspective; to address the body, we engage in Somatic Experiencing, giving the body a voice, while using the rational mind to interpret, bringing out the hurt or insult to be treated. This forms the basis of where we start.
In digging deeper into trauma, the modality we work with most closely is the Internal Family Systems model. From this perspective, we work to bring reconciliation to the client’s fragmented being. It's as if the happy person we were, went away and was replaced by one that is compelled to do whatever it is that we are unhappy with. Through parts work, frustrated, hurting, and confused parts will be found, seen in their fight and the cause of their hurt is witnessed and relieved. When the core Self becomes available, it is identified, welcomed, and with permission, restored to leadership of your being, reconciling it to its parts, freeing them from the burdens they carry, resulting in the restoration of the person to their healthy whole self.