Resilience

Building Shame Resilience in Clients

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 pat... »

Strategies for Helping Families to Enhance Resilience

If you are supporting a family in transition, you may perceive huge differences between them and the characteristics (named in our previous article) as belonging to resilient families. If so, you may be wondering: “So how do I help move my struggling family down the continuum towards greater functionality?” In this article we address three principal areas of focus, which reinforce one another: Sup... »

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 [pre... »

Helping Families Enhance Resilience: Creating supportive contexts

This is the third article of a 3-part series titled Helping Families Enhance Resilience. The series explores how you (as a person providing social support) can help families deal with transition by developing effective resilience skills. »

Helping Families Enhance Resilience: Encouraging effective parenting

This is the second article of a 3-part series titled Helping Families Enhance Resilience. The series explores how you (as a person providing social support) can help families deal with transition by developing effective resilience skills. The series we will address three principal areas of focus, which reinforce one another: Supporting a positive self-concept; Encouraging effective parenting and; ... »

Helping Families Enhance Resilience: Supporting a positive self-concept

This is the first article of a 3-part series titled Helping Families Enhance Resilience. The series explores how you (as a person providing social support) can help families deal with transition by developing effective resilience skills. The series we will address three principal areas of focus, which reinforce one another: Supporting a positive self-concept; Encouraging effective parenting and; C... »

Optimism Skills and Resilience

Do you tend to look on the bright side of things? More importantly for your clinical work (if you are a counsellor, psychologist or social worker): do your clients? It used to be deemed generally irrelevant whether someone tended to see the glass “half-full” or “half-empty”, but the work of Martin Seligman in recent decades has shown that optimists have an advantage in the game of surviving and th... »

A Guide to Helping the Suicide-Bereaved

How can you best offer support to someone who is bereaved by suicide? What attitudes, translated into caring actions, can best facilitate the bereaved person’s coping in the immediate and short term, and their healing in the longer term? Because of the remaining societal stigma and also the lack of knowledge about how to be with the suicide-bereaved in a sensitive way, many friends and even family... »

Counselling Strategies for Dealing with the Lonely Client

In part 1 of this 2-part series, we explored the symptoms, causes and effects of loneliness. In this continued article, we’ll discuss various counselling strategies for dealing with the lonely client and provide you with guidelines to maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. »

Positive Psychology and Resilience

By Mrs Toula Gordillo What makes one person ‘bounce back’ following adversity and another person seem to ‘crumble in a heap’? This question has always posed a fascination for me. I have often wondered whether individuals are simply born with the skills to cope with the difficulties that life often presents or whether there are a set of stress-coping skills that individuals can learn. »