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

Family Issues When There is Disability, Illness, or Serious Injury

AIPC May 21, 2014 Children & Families, Counselling Theory & Practice, Social Support

Have you ever experienced anyone in your family becoming seriously ill or disabled? Chances are that it was a difficult time for you. When a family member is stricken with a physical injury, illness or disability, the ramifications of that change go far beyond the physical, often causing deep-level re-alignment of membership roles, responsibilities, and expectations as the family deals with the present while attempting to adapt to a very different future than the one they had envisioned. »

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Dialectical Behaviour Therapy in Practice

AIPC May 19, 2014 Counselling Theory & Practice, Mental Health Issues, Personality Disorders, Self-Harming / Suicide, Therapies & Approaches

There are four primary modes of treatment, or elements, in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: (1) Therapist consultation groups; (2) Individual therapy; (3) Telephone contact/crisis coaching and; (4) Group skills training (Mind, 2013). Not all DBT programs carry all four modes of treatment. When they do, the various modes can be described as follows. Therapist consultation groups: An essential aspect of the therapy is that therapists, who usually work in teams rather than independently, receive DBT from each other. Working with people who have suicidal ideas and are self-harming can be very stressful, so the members of the group undertake to keep each other in DBT mode: being dialectical with one another and avoiding pejorative descriptions of either client or therapist behaviour. »

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Challenges of Families Who Experience Domestic Violence

AIPC May 9, 2014 Children & Families, Counselling Theory & Practice, Social Support

There is no way around it; all four functions of a family are put at risk in the sad situation of family violence, and to a large degree the risk factors are interrelated. Focusing first on Function One, family formation and membership, we can comprehend how the pervasiveness of family violence in Australia (which is a microcosm of the global picture) hugely distorts the capacity of the family to function positively as a “first tribe”, or initial place of experiencing membership for children. When there is domestic violence, there are issues of power and control. When family violence is so pervasive that a woman is physically abused by her husband every nine seconds, as in the United States (Commonwealth Fund, 1993), the question arises as to how well the family unit can function. »

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Challenges of Blended and Step “Remarried” Families

AIPC April 28, 2014 Children & Families, Counselling Theory & Practice, Social Support

The “blending” of a re-marriage means that the old norms, rules, and ways of gaining acceptance are now null and void. Blended and step family members generally do not realise this at the outset, wanting to re-create the biological family of origin (the children’s desire), or the first marriage (the spouses’ unconscious wish). They cannot. In remarriages, there are at least three types of “emotional baggage” that members carry into the new situation, complicating the dynamics. This article is about the common challenges which remarried families face. »

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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...