MY HUMANISTIC-INTEGRATIVE APPROACH AND ISSUES ADDRESSED

First and foremost, as a Counsellor I seek to offer a supportive relationship.  For me Counselling is an invitation not to be alone in our distress.  It is the possibility of human connection when it is perhaps most difficult to find in our lives and yet when we might benefit most from it.  This support can offer an opportunity to uncover or re-discover our own capacity and strength.  Once we feel safe and strong enough it can also offer an opportunity to learn and develop.

 

We all learn to ‘be’ certain ways in the world.  These are ways that somehow ‘work’ for us in our unique and sometimes challenging life circumstances.  Frequently we are not even aware of these patterns.  As we move through life however they can stop working for us and we become acutely aware of the resulting distress.  Such distress is frequently labelled depression, anxiety, addiction, anger issues, bereavement and in many other ways also.  It shows up in relationship issues with family, peers or colleagues, as stress at work, self-harming, struggles with life changes and transitions. 

 

Through Counselling we can raise our awareness of what isn’t working for us anymore and other possible ways of being.  We can raise our awareness of what might be ‘getting in the way’ of these other possibilities and about the supports we might need for ourselves.  We may even then, with sufficient safety and support, begin to experiment with these other possibilities – within our Counselling and potentially in our lives.