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There are many types of counselling, but one thing is central to them all: the act of attentive listening. When I did my first counselling training course, the first thing we did was a simple listening exercise. We got into…
Often, when we tell a friend about an experience we’ve had, they will respond by telling us about the time they had a similar experience. Or if we want help with a difficulty or a problem, they might offer advice…
The client-therapist relationship is not like any other relationship. For clients, and for counsellors at the start of training, it can take some getting used to. Suddenly, two people are sitting in a room and it’s not clear what the…
Counselling – also called psychotherapy – started with Sigmund Freud at the beginning of the last century. Shocking at the time, his basic idea was: ‘We are not who we think we are!’ In other words, you don’t know yourself…
As children, we come to realise – consciously or unconsciously – that certain behaviours, attitudes and ways of speaking are unacceptable to our parents/caregivers, so we start to shut down parts of ourselves. To use a technical term, we split…
An essential part of counselling – and training to be a counsellor – is getting to know ourselves. When we embark on this journey, we quickly come to realise how complicated we are – for example, we are inconsistent, often…
Most training institutions require trainee therapists to have at least some personal therapy, albeit the required number of therapy hours varies. But if you’re a trainee, why do only the minimum number? Cost may be a factor. But I want…
At the start of therapy, the client and therapist do something called ‘contracting’. This is where they agree on the ‘terms and conditions’ of the therapy work. The contract creates a structure for the therapy. Part of the contract concerns…
Everyone wants to be happy, but what is happiness and why is it so hard to find? According to Sigmund Freud – the founder of psychoanalysis – humans are not constituted to be in a permanent state of happiness. He…
It’s difficult to summarise what therapy is about because everyone experiences it differently. For some, therapy is about having a space where they can feel heard and supported. I’ve written elsewhere about how the simple experience of being listened to can have…