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Psychotherapy
Counselling
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Counselling

We all have times in our lives when life gets on top of us. Often friends and family can offer support, but sometimes this is not enough. Sometimes we need professional support. What can be valuable in counselling is the opportunity to express yourself to someone who is separate from the rest of your life, who won't be overwhelmed or shocked by what you say, and won't tell you what to do.

Counselling will not involve advice, but will concentrate on exploration, understanding and experimentation with new ways of thinking and behaving.

Gestalt counselling

The key principle in gestalt therapy is the bringing of experience into the here-and-now through the use of conscious awareness. The client's attention is brought to what s/he is doing in the moment. This applies whether the client's concern is in the past, present or future. Talking 'about' personal matters, without awareness, is unlikely to result in significant change. Choice, and therefore self-responsibility, exist only in the present.

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural therapy)

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is a focused approach to the treatment of many types of emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems. It helps individuals to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviours and learn or relearn healthier skills and habits and has proved effective for a variety of emotional difficulties

Person-centred counselling

Person centred counselling deals with your self-concept, the sense you have about yourself, usually based on what significant people in your life have told you, or indicated to you in some other way. This is commonly not a true picture of yourself.

Person centred counselling deals with your conditions of worth. This is how we constantly try to be who we think other people want us to be, leaving no time to explore who we really are. This type of counselling does not focus on problems or solutions, but on the building up of a relationship between client and counsellor in which you feel safe to explore the real you.

Psychodynamic counselling

The counsellor is not only interested in the presenting problem but also their life history. The relationship with the client is central to the work. The task of the counsellor is to facilitate the clients insight and understanding by linking the past and present, interpreting some of the client’s communication and interpreting transference of past and present relationships

© 2007 Antonio Alves. All Rights Reserved.