Counselling

Getting Your Counselling Practice Going

So, you’ve got your counselling qualification, you’ve hung your shingle out, and now you’re ready and waiting for clients. Are you just twiddling your thumbs, or are clients actually making their way to your rooms? Many of us chose counselling because we wanted to help people and also, we like thinking about the health and life issues that clients bring. Unfortunately in some cas... »

Working with the Highly Sensitive Client

Your client fidgets as she tries to explain what’s bothering her, and why she has come to see you. “It’s not that I don’t like my job,” she says hesitantly. “Facilitating groups is fun, but I’m doing it so many days a week, I just feel overwhelmed!” And it’s not just her work. “In my relationship,” she continues, “I’m distressed, because during the upcoming holiday season, we are supposed to go to... »

Counselling Parents: The Early Stages

The counselling of parents, like most counselling and many other endeavours, is likely to be heavily influenced by what happens in the early stages. If parents come to you and feel welcomed, respected, and understood, they are more likely to open up with the vital information that will enable you to help their children change challenging or harmful behaviours. If in addition, you are able to conve... »

Helping Clients Develop Healthier Dietary Habits

Nutrition author Adel Davis used to claim, “You are what you eat” (Davis, 1970). Beyond diet, we “are” to some extent also how we exercise, how we sleep, and how we interact with our environment. That is because these are all variables which ultimately determine the condition of our physical self, which greatly impacts our capacity to express ourselves on other levels of being. In this article we ... »

Defining Psychology and Psychological Science

Psychology is the scientific study of thoughts, feelings and behaviour (Weiten, 2004). Compared to biology, chemistry or physics, psychology is a young scientific field. In 1879, William Wundt established the first psychology research lab at the University of Leipzig. In 1881, the first psychology journal was established, also by Wundt. Other important early contributors to psychology include Will... »

Psychologist Q&A: Counselling Indigenous Clients

Q. I am a non-Indigenous practitioner counselling Indigenous clients. Can I really do this effectively and what is the best way for a non-Indigenous therapist to counsel Indigenous clients? »

Social Media: Breeding Ground for Multiple Relationships

It starts out innocently. You email the client a scanned copy of an article relevant to something that came up in session. She emails you back to say thank you, and then asks a question related to her therapy, which you feel duty-bound to answer, so you do; before you know it, there is regular email exchange taking place. A few weeks later, she rings on your cell phone to clarify something you sai... »

Positive Interactive-behaviour Therapy for Intellectual Disability

Given that an estimated 60 percent of persons who have intellectual disability also experience severe communication deficits (AIHW, 2008), the literature on counselling this client group consistently refers to the importance of using “creative approaches” (WWILD, 2012, p 60) which allow the client to respond in both verbal and nonverbal ways. Thus, in addition to “talk therapy&rd... »

Book Review: Introduction to Counseling

Kottler, Jeffrey, A., and Shepard, David, S. (2015). Introduction to Counseling: Voices from the Field. (8th ed). Stamford, USA: Cengage Learning. »

Role Play Demonstration of a Supervision Session

In this video, Philip Armstrong (Clinical Director of the Clinical Counselling Centre and CEO of the Australian Counselling Association) and Catherine Dodemont (Registered Supervisor and Level 4 Member of the Australian Counselling Association) demonstrate (through a role-play) a counselling supervision session. »

Counselling and the Neurobiology of Personal Experience

The research in neuroscience is highly supportive of counselling’s emphasis on deep listening, empathic understanding, strength building, and wellness (Ivey, Ivey, Zalaquett, & Quirk, 2011). Counselling is shown to change the organisation of the brain: a learning process as the brain responds to stimuli and creates neural pathways to accommodate new information (Ivey, 2009). “Information” includes... »

Transference and Projection

The phenomena of transference and projection, although solidly accepted in the analytical and psychodynamic schools of psychology in which they originated, are nevertheless complex and often misunderstood concepts. Yet some claim that projection is the single most important phenomenon in psychotherapy. »

Working with Clients with Intellectual Disability

Are you as a mental health professional aware of the needs of clients with intellectual disabilities? Do you know what generally constitutes “impairment”, “disability”, or “activity limitation”? Would you be aware of special considerations or needs that such a client might have in a counselling context? »

What is Psychological First Aid?

Imagine for a moment that you are a survivor of a powerful cyclone. Let’s say that you and all your loved ones managed to get out safely, but you arrived at the community shelter with only a backpack each of essential medicines, basic documents (such as your birth certificate and passport), and a few precious photos. There was not time to grab more. After the winds receded and you were allowed to ... »

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