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

Fostering Resilience: In-session boosters to help clients bounce back

Suppose someone asks you, a mental health practitioner, “What is the most important thing you do as a counsellor (psychotherapist/psychologist/social worker) for your clients?” Your response might go along the lines of “helping them sort out their problems”, “educating them and inspiring them to make their lives work,” or possibly “providing support and a safe container while they explore new [presumably more effective] ways of being”. Whatever your particular way of framing the answer, the chances are that you have identified a role of supporting and helping build your clients’ resilience, even if you never call it that when you are with them. Indeed, fostering resilience – the great art of helping others to bounce back – is the foundation of what we do as mental health professionals. But... »

Fundamentals of Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, or DBT, was developed in 1993 by U.S. psychologist Marsha Linehan for use specifically with clients diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), who cope with distressing emotions and situations by using self-destructive behaviours such as suicide and self-harm, eating disorders, and substance abuse. Linehan’s assessment of the therapies available to BPD clients at the time was that traditional treatments were “woefully inadequate” (1993, p 3). »

What is Emotionally Focused Therapy?

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), also known as Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), was developed chiefly by Dr Susan Johnson, who perceived the need for a better way of doing couples therapy than what was available in the mid-1980s as she was finishing her doctoral work. The importance of supporting distressed couples cannot be underscored enough. Johnson noted that recent surveys in North America showed that most people rate finding a loving relationship as their main life goal, placing it ahead of career or financial success (2008). »

Treatment Options for the Depressed Elderly

Because depression in older adults is so widely unrecognised, it can be difficult to comprehend just how forcefully conditions such as deteriorating health, a sense of isolation and hopelessness, and the challenge of adjusting to new life circumstances can create a “perfect storm” pushing an already-depressed person over the edge to suicide. When depression is not treated in elderly white men (in the United States), the suicide rate is six times the national average. Unbelievably, 75 percent of those men will have been seen by a doctor within several months of their deaths: clearly a doctor who did not truly “see” them! Proper treatment can prevent suicide, but because it so often goes unrecognised, the (U.S.) National Institute of Mental Health considers depression in people age 65 and ol... »

Page 22 of 78«2021222324»

A Case Using Brief Psychodynamic Therapy

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...

The Fine Art of Compassion

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...

Men and Emotions: From Repression to Expression

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...

The Fine Art of Compassion

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...