Posts Tagged ‘counselling’

Working at Relational Depth

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023 | Books

Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy is a book by Dave Mearns and Mick Cooper that expands on Rogerian concepts of relational meeting and describes the idea of relational depth: a profound meeting on contact in the therapeutic relationship.

The author argue that relationship depth goes beyond the surface level of professional caring. They suggest that professional boundaries, while important, get in the way of really being with your clients in the encounter. Instead, they suggest we should allow ourselves to truly care for our clients and bringer a greater level of honesty, openness and immediacy into the room.

Counselling L3 certificate

Monday, December 6th, 2021 | Life

It feels like years ago that I finished my level 3 in counselling but my certificate has finally turned up. To convince Leeds City College to send it to me, I had to post them enough stamps for them to send it out.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy course

Tuesday, August 17th, 2021 | News

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy that uses acceptance and mindfulness to treat borderline personality disorder, suicidal behaviour and a range of other challenging conditions.

My new course will teach you all about it. Get access to all of my psychology courses via Holbeck College or preview the course on Udemy.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy course

Monday, July 5th, 2021 | News

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a type of cognitive behavioural therapy that uses mindfulness and acceptance to help people change their lives. My new course introduces all of the key concepts, theory and techniques use in ACT.

You can get access to all of my psychology courses at Holbeck College or preview the course on Udemy. Or watch the video below.

Family Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques

Monday, March 15th, 2021 | Books

Family Therapy: 100 Key Points & Techniques is a book by Eddy Street and Mark Rivett on practising family therapy.

Rather than being a therapy for families (although it is also this), family therapy is a modality of psychotherapy in itself that involves multiple members of a family. While there are individual schools that focus on narrative or other areas of focus, most of the theory revolves around systems and is also referred to as systematic therapy.

These systems allow us to take in a wider view of the issue. For example, a child may be misbehaving, which can be addressed by itself but is better addressed by understanding that this is a cry for attention when the parents are arguing. And that by addressing the problems with the systems, the result of the problems will resolve themselves.

As you may guess from the title, the book is broken down into 100 short sections of a couple of pages. Each one looks at a particular issue, technique or discussion inside family therapy. It follows a rough structure rather than jumping around too much, so can still serve as an introduction to family therapy.

Person-Centred Counselling course

Tuesday, February 16th, 2021 | News

Person-Centred Counselling is one of the most widespread counselling modalities and asks the question “what kind of relationship can I provide to help another person?”

So, whether you are looking to build stronger relationships in your personal and professional life, or go on to work as a counsellor, a foundation in person-centred counselling is an excellent first step. My new course teaches you the theory, philosophy and skills associated with person-centred counselling.

Preview the course or watch the trailer below.

Leeds Counselling review

Wednesday, May 8th, 2013 | Thoughts

Earlier this year I started sessions at Leeds Counselling, and having recently terminated them, I thought I would write about my experiences. I’ve kept a detailed diary of my thoughts while using the service, but as there is a certain level of confidentially associated with counselling services, I’ll only discuss some general ideas here.

I think I did ten sessions in total, and then terminated the service for a number of reasons, but mainly because I didn’t feel we were making any progress.

When I started the sessions, I was told that she hoped we would be able to make some progress early on – nothing major, but we should expect to see something after three sessions. As this deadline was reached the estimates increased, and increased again, and I still don’t feel like any sign of progress had been made. Perhaps counselling just takes a long time, but I feel it was rather misleading if this is the case.

Having spoken to a number of counsellors, it seems clear that nobody in the field of counselling really knows what it is. That is to say, if you compare it to a field like CBT, which is quite specific and has methodology and a clear expectation of results, counselling seems very fuzzy and nobody can really define it very accurately.

I didn’t feel there was a strong knowledge of mental health. For example, I had to explain a lot of the techniques and ideas behind CBT. Obviously I’m not expecting them to be CBT experts, but you would expect people who work in mental health, particularly people who tend to deal with clients who have previously done CBT and then being referred, so have a basic knowledge of the subject.

I also found it incredibly similar to Scientology. This could be because Scientology copied many of its features to give it a feeling of legitimacy, or for some other reason, but the principles behind Scientology and counselling bare a very strong resemblance.

Leeds Counselling charge me £47 per session, meaning I have invested over £500 in their service once you include the initial screening. That is a worthwhile investment of my time and money if it was having a positive impact on my health, but as I didn’t seem to, it doesn’t seem worthwhile.