No one wants a one-size fits all approach to counselling; we want a process that is responsive to us as individuals and our unique situations. But we also need a counsellor with experience and with whom we feel comfortable enough to discuss anything.
Individual counselling is just that – personal and unique to you.
Individual counselling, sometimes called psychotherapy or just therapy, is the process of meeting with a trained professional counsellor that “allows a person to talk about their feelings, needs and problems in a safe, structured, confidential setting”. For me, that means I meet clients every week for a 50-60-minute session.
I offer people a free 30-minute session to get to know me a little and how I work, but it also gives you a chance to talk to me about what brought you to counselling and your expectations.
The counselling process I use has four linked stages:
Successful counselling depends on knowing where the client wants to get to. Once this is established, then the task of therapy is to establish the quickest, and safest, way there.
The grounded solution-focused counselling approach is based on Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT for short).
SFBT is an evidence-based framework that sits outside the mainstream counselling and psychotherapeutic approaches; it is a framework. It does what it says on the tin it focuses on developing solutions over a short-term period. For me, it is an approach that works well with men. It is a practical approach to counselling.
What’s more, in study after study, SFBT has been shown to deliver long-term benefits to clients; whether they had symptoms of mood disorders such as depression or anxiety or struggled with addictions or trauma, the severity of their problems had diminished because of the work they had done using SFBT.
Whether you want to focus on reducing stress, improving relationships, changing behaviours or understanding your place in the world, an SFBT-based approach could work well for you.
At the heart of my work is respect. I will not judge what you say or do. I am open in my belief that there is always a reason why we do or say things – even if we don’t know what that reason is – which often we don’t!
We try to understand what is going on, but also, we look at how you want to be – that is the way ahead, building new neural pathways in the brain, looking for practical solutions, not theoretical answers.
Although counselling is challenging, there are no pressures, expectations or judgements; the solutions would not be that useful if there were. We are looking for solutions that work for you and fit your circumstances and, importantly, that you feel you can adapt, if necessary, in the future.
Oh, and by the way, we can have a laugh or two on the way -it’s not all serious.
