Tag archive: counselling

Opposites Attract There is an old saying that opposites attract. I think there can be a fair bit of truth in that, particularly between narcissists and co-dependents. The common trait between them both however is an unhealthy relationship with themselves. Co-dependant people have a poor relationship with themselves. Relying on others to validate their experiences…

Perfectionism is striving for something that is often unobtainable. If you are a perfectionist you probably don’t acknowledge your success even if you do reach it. In fact you’re already looking for somewhere to improve. Another way of looking at perfectionism is a fear of making mistakes. This can involve spending hours going over the same…

Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is an approach to therapy developed during the 1980’s by a team lead by husband and wife Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg. Unlike other kinds of counselling and psychotherapy, it doesn’t begin with and explore the client’s difficulties. Nor does it focus on the history and frequency of…

Psychodynamic counselling aims to help clients with a wide range of issues such as anxiety, phobias, OCD, addiction, trauma etc. It is also particularly helpful in relationship counselling as partners explore the conflicts within themselves and their relationships around them. It comes from the work of Freud and subsequent psychoanalytical theorists who followed; theorists such…

A traumatic event is a shocking experience for which our normal ways of processing and coping become overwhelmed. Reactions to such events vary from person to person but often lead to feelings of confusion and fear. Usually unsettling thoughts and feelings dissipate over a few weeks as the brain begins to make sense of and…

What is CBT? Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, otherwise known as CBT, is a form of counselling. It is an evidence based approach to helping emotional and physical health conditions. It’s an approach that looks at not only what we think, how we think, and how that affects how we act, and how that affects how we…

There are many different types of supervision. A few examples would be clinical, managerial, consultative, educational, coaching, organisational and so on. Historically, clinical supervision covered counselling and psychotherapy. Later as supervision developed it began to cover managerial and other professional disciplines. Different models of supervision have been developed over the years. The Cyclical model, the…

I believe there are two things you need to bring to any relationship, whether it’s with your partner, your neighbour, your employer or whoever. The first is self-respect. I think that self-respect is a good place to start and a good healthy thing to bring to any relationship. The second is communication. I have noticed…

Gas lighting is an unusual term for what is possibly one of the most insidious forms of emotional manipulation and abuse. The term comes from an old black and white movie where one of the characters manipulates the lighting in the house and when his wife comments on it he tells her it’s only her…