Anger management is important to ourselves and to others. It is usually unpleasant for the person experiencing the anger, especially afterwards, and invariably for the person at whom it is directed. The one at the receiving end may feel afraid, resentful, shamed, angry themselves or all of these emotions at once. The end result for both ...
Depression as a Public Issue
One in seven Australians suffer with some form of depression in their lifetime. Based on a measure of its n
egative effects on communities and individuals, it is currently rated as the world’s third most debilitating and costly illness. The World Health Organization has predicted that ...
What are the contradictions of couples counselling?
What is it I can briefly yet clearly say about the apparent contradictions of couples counselling? How do two separate people come to live as a single unit? Can two, in some sense, become one, and if so, do they then stop being two?
Couples counselling addresses the question, what is this thing that we can’t see, touch or measure, and that we call a relationship, or more specifically, being a couple? Do we stop being ...
Continue Reading →
Firstly, I should say something brief about what Focusing is. It is a way of learning about others and myself. It combines meditation–the bringing of my attention to bear on a specific content–and creative expression–the use of language, pictures, movement, music, etc. to gain an understanding of that content. The bridge between these two activities is what Focusing calls the felt-sense or felt meaning. It is a sense, often experienced physically in the middle of the body between the abdomen and ...
Continue Reading →
Holistic counselling is inclusive in what it considers significant for a client’s well-being. Every area that pertains to human life is on the table for possible consideration. No area of activity is left out because to leave it out would be to disavow a part of our humanity and to overlook the fact that all aspects of us, as living systems, ...
What do I mean when I use that term, spiritual counselling?
There are times when I have felt that after nine years working as a counsellor, I’m finally getting my head around what counselling is, what it might be and what it is for. Such moments usually come unexpectedly and surprise me that different areas of my professional and private ...
What is mutuality in counselling?
I woke up in the middle of last night from a dream about work, something that rarely enters my dreams. In the dream, I am listening to a client, and when he finishes speaking, I ask him what it is about our conversations that is of value to him. His response is slow in coming. I can see his mouth is trying to form a word, but something is keeping him from being able to do ...
Continue Reading →Counselling for the darkness of depression.
I was recently in a conversation that brought home to me how much of what is called counselling is about a basic human need. I was speaking with a client, and he was telling me how important to him was the feeling of family, the feeling of belonging. For him, not to have ...
Where does the notion of a therapy of resurrection come from?
It’s Good Friday, today, and so, it’s not surprising that I find myself this morning musing about what is undoubtedly the central story of western culture, and of many other cultures, that of resurrection. And I find my mind effortlessly drifting to a question about ...
Is relationship really an art in listening?
Listening seems to be one of those things that is highly underrated in western countries. It’s talking, having something to say and saying it effectively, that is primarily valued. Of course, being an effective speaker is a great thing. However, the results of such a lop-sided view of communication is that many of us have developed into superb talkers but poor listeners, and therefore there seems to be a community shortage of good listeners. ...
Continue Reading →