Understanding Counselling
Counselling is a process where the client and clinician work together to solve problems that are causing suffering and interfering with the client’s life. It is an empowering process and can be adapted for both adults and children.
Our office specializes in a Cognitive-Behavioural approach (i.e. “thoughts and actions”), which means that we focus on your power to do something to make things better.
Even though your stresses may come from a situation that is beyond your control, there are always things you can change about how you deal with them. These changes have a powerful impact; when you commit to taking action against your pain and frustration, you build confidence, patience, resilience, and hope.
In Cognitive-Behavioural counselling, you or your child can learn skills that take the overwhelm out of the problems you face. We help you build a toolkit of strategies that make sense for your life and have a meaningful impact.
For Adults:
Adults who come to us for counselling are often looking for help dealing with relationship issues within the family, like challenges in addressing child behaviour or setting up collaboration and “family rules”. Our services also address personal issues like depression and anxiety.
Our recommendations and guidance come from up-to-date and research-based practices in our field; we connect you to a wealth of knowledge about what works. Both research and experience have taught us that individuals and families have a huge capacity to make positive change. Parents can set the tone for success, trust, and closeness in the whole family through positive parenting choices. Our process combines theoretical knowledge with years of experience in adapting these well-respected approaches and making them work with real-life clients.
We’ve applied these methods with families from all walks of life, as well as within our own lives and our own households. All of our team members are dedicated to providing the best possible help to our clients, and we work every day to continue growing our helping skills and knowledge, and to practicing what we preach.
For Children:
Our counselling for children is also based in a Cognitive-Behavioural approach, although it is adapted to make sense to the child at his developmental level. We use techniques such as Play Therapy and Floortime, which means we introduce concepts and skills through play.
We may help one child build skills to cope with frustration and disappointment while “practicing” winning and losing at board games, or help another child build strategies to cope with bullying by role-playing in a “Problem-Solving Game”.
In many years of working with children of all ages and developmental abilities, we’ve learned that given the chance and the right kind of guidance, young people can come up with surprisingly appropriate solutions and strategies for their own problems. Our many wonderful experiences with children have given us great faith in their resilience and capability, and our work is devoted to bringing these out.
