Welcome to the AIPC Online Article Library. The library includes over 300 articles focusing on counselling, life effectiveness skills and mental health. We invite you to explore our range of articles by clicking the category links above, or using the drop-down menu on your right. To learn more about AIPC, visit www.aipc.net.au

Latest Articles

Procrastination: What Your Client Needs to Know

AIPC October 24, 2018 Counselling Theory & Practice, Effectiveness Skills, Life Coping Skills, Therapies & Approaches

95% of us procrastinate (Steel, 2010) – accruing negative consequences – despite having recognised for 500 years that we do it! Yet even modern psychological science still does not have definitive answers for why we procrastinate, or ironclad solutions for how to stop. If the client sitting in front of you is lamenting all the negative consequences he’s had for engaging in this habit, what can you tell him to help? What does he need to know to change his behaviour? This article looks at recent research illuminating what’s behind this most irritating habit, and the approaches that may help deal with it. »

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Mid-life “Crises”: How Should Therapists Think About Them?

AIPC June 13, 2018 Career Issues, Counselling Theory & Practice, Life Coping Skills

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” the client confides. “I’m at the top of my game in my job, my marriage is going ok, and I am healthy. I have achieved a lot of my goals, but my life suddenly feels like it doesn’t fit me anymore.” The client continues, describing a wild desire to quit everything and leave town – or maybe take up drinking to excess as a nightly sport. You perceive anxiety, depression, and something more. What’s clear from the client’s tale of angst is that what seems meaningful and purposive has somehow shifted, and now in the middle years there is an urgent need for re-assessment of what matters. Welcome to mid-life, you think. »

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Building Shame Resilience in Clients

AIPC June 1, 2018 Communication, Communication Skills, Counselling Process, Counselling Theory & Practice, Life Coping Skills, Social Support

Jungian analysts have called it the “swampland of the soul”. Other psychotherapy writers have observed how it originally served to keep us safe; the tendency to shame has been a universal one in which our desire to hide our flaws from others has saved us from being kicked out of the group (the society), which evolutionarily would have meant death (Sholl, 2013). So which is it? Is shame totally pathological, or is it ever helpful to us? And how shall we deal with it in the therapy session, especially when we are faced with a highly self-critical or otherwise shame-prone client? »

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Seven Secrets for a Healthy Microbiome

AIPC May 29, 2018 Counselling Theory & Practice, Life Coping Skills, Mental Health Issues, Neuropsychology

In the first article of this series we proposed the radical idea (to some) that a new paradigm for mental health helping is emerging: one in which we cannot ignore the burgeoning research showing that the gut affects our psychological health as much as psychological health influences our physical (gut) health. »

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Case Studies

A Case Using Brief Psychodynamic Therapy

AIPC November 27, 2014

Wendy is a 54 year old woman who has two adult children and has been married for twenty-nine years. Her husband, Steve, has recently and unexpectedly informed her that he no longer loves her and that he wants a divorce. Wendy was shocked to hear this...

A Case of Lost Direction

AIPC November 25, 2014

Jenny has come to counselling due to strong feelings of dissatisfaction with her life. She is 48 years old, un...

Case Study: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

AIPC June 7, 2013

Marian, a psychologist who specialised in anxiety disorders, closed the file and put it into the filing cabine...

Communication

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare meticulously for the interview, but somehow, it doesn’t go well. The interviewers don’t seem to warm to you, and you know in your heart that y...

Building Shame Resilience in Clients

AIPC June 1, 2018

Jungian analysts have called it the “swampland of the soul”. Other psychotherapy writers have observed how it ...

Strategies for Helping Families to Enhance Resilience

AIPC July 19, 2017

If you are supporting a family in transition, you may perceive huge differences between them and the character...

Counselling Theory & Practice

Men and Emotions: From Repression to Expression

AIPC August 19, 2019

In our previous article (read it here), we asked why men do not seem to express emotion as easily as women do. Was there some pathology, or should we just put the differences down to male-female tendencies? We identified Dr Ron Levant’s notion of “no...

Men, Emotions and Alexithymia

AIPC July 30, 2019

She sends him little “I love you” texts during the day, and wonders why he doesn’t even whisper the three magi...

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare me...

Life Coping Skills

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare meticulously for the interview, but somehow, it doesn’t go well. The interviewers don’t seem to warm to you, and you know in your heart that y...

The Benefits of Intentional Daydreaming

AIPC January 23, 2019

Your fitness tracker reminds you to walk away from your computer every hour to get needed movement – and then ...

Procrastination: What Your Client Needs to Know

AIPC October 24, 2018

95% of us procrastinate (Steel, 2010) – accruing negative consequences – despite having recognised for 500 yea...