What is Counselling
Holding space for you
The counselling relationship can be healing on it’s own, because of the ability of the counsellor to truly hold space for you. Holding space is about being with someone’s pain without making it about yours. We’re not ‘‘doing for” but “being with” you. As a counsellor I am fully present and listen and receive without any judgement. Counselling offers you the experience of true empathy, a place where someone truly sits with you through some of your darkest days.
Finding your own solutions
In counselling you are truly the expert of your own life. We work with what you give us and we facilitate a process where you discover more about yourself, your feelings and your beliefs. By truly feeling accepted and understood we’ll explore even deeper feelings and dare to maybe let go of certain beliefs that have been holding you back. I strive to facilitate a process where you get to experience yourself as an integrated whole – mind, body, emotions and intellect. Just by this you’ll discover your own solutions to start implementing the change you want to see in your own life.
Unclinical warmth
As a specialist wellness counsellor I cannot diagnose and I cannot treat you for anything.
This means that our ultimate goal of our sessions isn’t to look for boxes to tick, to find a diagnosis that might fit your unique lived experience. You are the expert in our sessions. We team up together in a collaborative process to work on goals that you want to achieve. Counselling is a warm and safe space with two equal human beings. Counselling can be a great resource for you to improve your quality of life while living with a mental health disorder. It’s a space where we focus on how to improve your life as a whole, and not just treating mental health symptoms.
My bachelor and honours in social work & theoretical and practical training as a counsellor do give me the knowledge to pick up when to refer you for diagnoses and/ or treatment.
Psycho-education
Just because we don’t treat and or diagnose as counsellors, doesn’t mean that we don’t have a deep understanding of living with mental health conditions & how to help people better understand and become accustomed to living with mental health conditions. During my training we studied trauma in depth to help us be trauma-informed counsellors as well. I help you better understand the challenges that you are facing as well as highlighting your personal coping abilities and your internal and external resources to address these difficulties. But most importantly I help you normalise what you are experiencing. The goal of psycho-education is to help you feel more in control, have greater internal capacity to work towards mental and emotional well-being.
Skills development
Counselling is a process that has a beginning, a middle and an end. By the end of your counselling process you should have gained insights about your past, present and future-self with the help of your counsellor. The process is goal oriented. Together you and I set up what you’d like to achieve with your counselling process. These goals will be achieved if you invest in your process. As counsellors we are ethically and legally obliged to develop continuously professionally. We are therefore skilled enough to help you build the skill sets you need to feel in control of your life. We know of evidence based tools/ methods to teach you on how to better cope with certain things. Counselling is empowering.