By Leanne Chapman

Jodie is a 40 year old woman who is married with three children and works full-time in a professional career. She has been experiencing low levels of energy for approximately 18 months along with feelings of stress and overwhelm. While working with Jodie, the Professional Therapist adopts the use of art therapy techniques to allow the client to look outside the box and find novel ways to increase self-awareness, reduce stress, and improve her physical, mental, and emotional well-being. For ease of writing, the Professional Therapist is abbreviated to “T”.

Background (more…)

Filed under: Case Studies, Stress & Burnout by admin

“First impressions stick.”
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

If there is any truth in these two popular notions, then anyone working with a helpee (e.g. a therapy client, a friend, a family member, etc.) within the context of providing mental health support should not underestimate the usefulness and importance of opening micro-skills. (more…)

Filed under: Counselling Microskills by admin

The American National Science Foundation discovered that we form an impression of someone in just three seconds (personal communication, 1984). Social scientists also claim that at least 80 per cent of our communication takes place on the non-verbal level (Young, 2005), with only 7 percent of emotion being conveyed by verbal means. Of the rest, 38 per cent is conveyed by voice, and 55 per cent by facial expression (Mehrabian, 1972). Beyond that, researchers have come to appreciate non-verbal behaviours as important channels of communication, serving the functions of:

• Regulating conversations
• Communicating emotions
• Modifying verbal messages
• Providing messages about the helping relationship
• Giving insights into self-perceptions
• Providing clues that people are not saying what they are thinking (Highlen and Hill, 1984).

(more…)

Filed under: Communication, Counselling Process by admin

Although never quite adequately defined, vague generalisations such as “stress and tension are normal reactions to events that threaten us” are used to describe it. Such threats can come from accidents, financial troubles and problems on the job or with family and through our emotional and physical reactions to the given situations, we become what is termed ‘stressed’. Not that long ago, the terms of worry, anxiety, fear, impatience, and anger gave way to what has been formally termed ‘stress’ and its offshoots, stressful, stress-related, and stressed-out. Further complicating matters is the fact that different people react to the same “stress” in unpredictable ways.

Stress is not a diagnosis but a process happening over time. The level and extent of stress a person may feel depends a great deal on their attitude to a particular situation. An event which may be extremely stressful for one person can be a minor event in another person’s life. Stress is not always a bad thing because some people thrive on it and even need it to get things done. However, when the term ‘stress’ is used in a clinical sense, it generally refers to a situation that causes discomfort and distress for a person and that is the area we will look at in this article. (more…)

Filed under: Counselling Theory, Stress & Burnout by admin

“Kassinove and Sukhodolsky (1995) defined anger as a felt emotional state. This private state varies in intensity and duration, as well as frequency, and is associated with cognitive distortions, verbal and motor behaviours, and patterns of physical arousal. Although anger may emerge spontaneously, another person is typically seen as the cause of anger. And it usually includes a perception of blameworthiness.

Anger is not a form of aggression, and most often does not lead to aggression! Rather it is a felt experience that typically follows unwanted, aversive interactions with close friends, colleagues, and family members. Although anger is common, and sometimes useful, it can become an independent problem with many negative consequences, requiring treatment in the context of individuals, couples, or family therapy in private practice or institutional settings.” (Kassinove & Tafrate, 2002, p.12) (more…)

Filed under: Life Coping Skills, Stress & Burnout by admin