Counselling & therapy approaches available at the Centre

INTRODUCTION

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Counselling and therapy can be useful for discussing how to deal with life problems or address clinical disorders such as anxiety or depression. Therapy can be in person, by telephone or over skype.

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BEHAVIOUR THERAPY

Behaviour therapy focuses on helping clients to change undesired behaviour such as avoidance and reduce anxiety. One of the key methods used to help clients overcome phobias is graded exposure where by clients learn to face their fears in acceptable and tolerable stages by using a range of techniques. This approach is ideal for specific phobias such as spider phobia.

COGNITIVE & COGNITIVE-BEHAVIOUR THERAPY

These therapies combine the use of cognitive (thinking) and behavioural techniques to help clients to modify their moods, such as anxiety and depression, and behaviours by changing their self-defeating thinking, attitudes and beliefs. Often worksheets are completed to help the client to develop helpful thinking in order tot ackle their problems.

Cognitive behaviour therapy is underpinned by much academic research that supports the techniques and strategies used to help with depression; stress; anxiety including phobias, panic attacks; obsessive-compulsive disorder; post-traumatic disorder.

MULTIMODAL THERAPY

Multimodal therapy developed by Professor Arnold Lazarus is a technically eclectic and systematic approach. The approach is technically eclectic as it uses techniques taken from many different psychological theories and systems, although it does not necessarily adhere to the theories concerned. The techniques and interventions are applied systematically, based on data from client qualities, the therapist's clinical skills and specific techniques. The approach focuses on seven key areas: Behaviours, Affect (emotion), Sensations, Images, Cognitions (thoughts), Interpersonal and Drugs/biology and the aide memoire BASIC I.D. arises from the first letter of each.

PROBLEM FOCUSED/ SOLVING COUNSELLING, THERAPY, COACHING & TRAINING

Problem-focused or problem-solving counselling, therapy or coaching is a method of teaching or training clients to identify current problems in their lives and then to learn a series of steps in order to overcome them. The approach is double headed: first tackling the emotional aspects of a problem; second, once this has been achieved, dealing with its practical aspects. It is a cognitive-behavioural form of counselling or training.

RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY

Rational emotive behaviour therapy developed by Dr Albert Ellis, is a system of counselling or psychotherapy which teaches clients how their belief systems largely determine how they feel about and act towards situations, problems and life events in thier lives. It focuses on four types of thinking that largely cause stress: Rigid demands such as 'musts' and 'shoulds'; awfulizing such as, 'Life is really awful'; low frustration tolerance, e.g. 'I can't stand the pressure of work'; Damnation of self or others, e.g. 'As I failed my exam, I am a real failure as a person'.

HYPNOSIS , COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL & RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOURAL HYPNOTHERAPY

The Centre therapists will use hypnosis as an adjunct to cognitive behavioural, rational emotive behavioural and multimodal therapy when appropriate.