Making The Difference

MAKING THE DIFFERENCE SERVICES

WHAT IS COUNSELLING?

The Basic Principles

The aim of counselling is to provide an opportunity for clients to work towards living in a more satisfying and resourceful way.

In counselling the right of the client to make his or her own decisions is respected.

We will clarify with the client the basis on which counselling is to be undertaken including fees and confidentiality. All subsequent changes will be negotiated.

We continually monitor our own skills, resources and practice.

We are professionally qualified as counsellors and are committed to maintaining our competence.

We have regular supervision and consultative support.

We will not abuse our position of trust in any way.

All that takes place between counsellor and client is treated with respect and discretion.


OUR APPROACH TO COUNSELLING

While we follow the core priciples and ethics of counselling outlined above we have developed approaches to our work which we seek to tailor to the needs of each client according to their needs, life experiences and reasons for seeking our help. These different strands to our work are the result of the integration of our developing experience, philosophy and training and our understanding of innovations in the world of counselling and psychotherapy.

We outline below the main areas which we incorporate into our work and which we have found have proved most helpful to our clients.

EMDR - EYE MOVEMENT DESENSITIZATION AND REPROCESSING

EMDR is a highly effective method of 'normalising' trauma. When a person has experienced a traumatic event this trauma may become locked into the mind and the brain may 'replay' the trauma spontaneously in the form of flashbacks and the person may develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These experiences can become fixed in the body-mind in the form of irrational emotions, blocked energy and physical symptons.

Ordinary daily events seem to happen without leaving a mark on our lives. Traumatic events however can often get trapped and can form a perpetual blockage. Like a broken record, they can repeat themselves in our mind-body over and over again. Nightmares may be the mind's way of attempting to process this information, but the trauma memory always lasts beyond the dream.

Traumatic experiences, when locked in the mind, can exacerbate anxiety and prevent a person from moving forward and escaping from the prison of fear.

EMDR can help the traumatised to feel what is true for them. It can help a person to develop and attune to their own inner wisdom. EMDR clears away clutter so that a person can normalise their experience. It allows the 'locked' information to pass through the mind, processing and normalising it. The therapist follows and facilitates the clients' process without interpretation or judgement. This enables the person to observe and report their experiences with less fear and aversion, listening to themselves.

In EMDR therapy people develop and strengthen their sense of truth and inner wisdom by reprocessing the old traumatic material in a structured and safe way.

We will be pleased to explain the principles and procedures of EMDR if you would like further clarification.

ANAM CARA

Carl Jung said that he wasn't aware of a single client in the second half of life whose problems weren't essentially to do with " the Numinous" - what we could call the spiritual - dimension of their lives. Our belief is that whereas most problems, at any time in our lives, are psychological in nature most solutions to them lie in the spiritual dimension of the human condition .

We have both experienced in our own lives and in much of the work we do with clients that the transpersonal or spiritual search for purpose and meaning in life is central to growth, change and healing. We have both derived huge benefits from what we call our anam cara - Gaelic for 'soul friend' - with whom we can share the hidden intimacies of our lives and by whom we are understood mind, body and soul without mask or pretension.

We in turn seek to offer such a relationship to anyone who is trying to understand themselves through the exploration of their relationship with the Divine, their God or Higher Power. If you are reading this and these words resonate with your search for a soul companion maybe one of us might be the person you are seeking to accompany you on your journey.