Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Types of Counselling - Part 1

Counselling
Counselling is a special relationship built on confidentiality, mutual respect and open communication, with the intention of helping people to clarify and identify their problem areas and help them independently find their own solutions. It is about empowering a person to make their own decisions; it is not  giving advice or offering sympathy. 

The principle behind counselling is that it helps enormously to share problems with a counsellor who is there to  accept you as you are listen and  understand how things are for you .  The counsellor is unbiased and there to offer support and strength during emotional times. More importantly he/she  can help you unravel the reasons behind issues such as depression, substance abuse and low self esteem, or come to terms with childhood pain caused by bereavement or sexual abuse. Counselling is a process during which you will come to know yourself, to understand why you engage in the same destructive behavior or repeat the same patterns.  It is a journey of self discovery which can be painful and difficult, but the end result is a more fulfilling and enlightened life.

In a typical session you would meet with your therapist to decide whether counseling is what you need and also whether you feel you could work together. If you are going to be able to share personal aspects of your life with the counsellor it is important that you feel a connection and warmth as well as trust and confidence with your councellor.  After that you will make a contract to work together for a number of sessions  to ensure that you are getting what you need from your sessions. 

Counselling is suitable for most people and most problems, provided you really want to change your life and are willing to experience some emotional turmoil along the way. Counselling is not suitable for people with mental illness, who  may have different needs and may  benefit from  psychiatrist or clinical psychologist.

Different Types of Counselling

There are many different forms of counselling, each with different ideas about how the human psyche has developed and different ways of working with issues. For example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is concerned with a client's behavior and the context in which this takes place, with a view to learning the ways of acceptable behavior.  Psychodynamic Therapy is more interested in the client's unconscious thought processes and believes that childhood experience provides answers for today's problems. Brief Solution Focused Therapy is a  short term therapy that concentrates on one issue and tries to find ways of solving it, usually practiced  for work problems and relationship issues. Humanistic counsellors place great importance on the relationship between client and counsellor and believe in essentially the  positive nature of human life.
  • Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of communication. It is practised by qualified, registered Art Therapists who work with children, young people, adults and seniors.   Clients who can use art therapy may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include, for example, emotional, behavioral or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, brain-injury or neurological conditions and physical illness. Art therapy may be provided for groups, or for individuals, depending on clients’ need.
  • Dance therapy, or dance movement therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance for emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral and physical conditions. As a form of expressive therapy, DMT is founded on the basis that body movements and emotions are directly related. The ultimate purpose of DMT is to find a healthy balance and sense of wholeness.
  • Drama Therapy  is the use of theatre techniques to facilitate personal growth and promote mental health. Drama therapy is used in a wide variety of settings, including hospitals, schools, mental health centers, prisons, and businesses. Drama Therapy, as a form of Expressive Arts Therapy, (also known as Expressive Therapy), exists in many forms and can be applicable to individuals, couples, families, and various groups.
  • Music therapy is an allied health profession and one of the expressive therapies, consisting of an interpersonal process in which a trained music therapist uses music and all of its facets—physical, emotional, mental, social, aesthetic, and spiritual—to help clients to improve or maintain their health. Music therapists primarily help clients improve their health across various domains (e.g., cognitive functioning, motor skills, emotional and affective development, behavior and social skills, and quality of life) by using music experiences for example  improvisation, singing, songwriting, listening to and discussing music, moving to music) to achieve treatment goals and objectives. It is considered both an art and a science, with a qualitative and quantitative research literature base incorporating areas such as clinical therapy, biomusicology, musical acoustics, music theory, psychoacoustics, embodied music cognition, aesthetics of music, and comparative musicology. Referrals to music therapy services may be made by other health care professionals such as physicians, psychologists, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Music therapists are found in nearly every area of the helping professions. Some commonly found practices include developmental work (communication, motor skills, etc.) for  individuals with special needs, songwriting and listening in reminiscence/orientation work with the elderly,  processing and relaxation work, and rhythmic entrainment for physical rehabilitation in stroke victims. Music therapy is also used in some medical hospitals, cancer centers, schools, alcohol and drug recovery programs, psychiatric hospitals, and correctional facilities.
  • Brief psychotherapy or Brief therapy is an umbrella term for a variety of approaches to psychotherapy. It differs from other schools of therapy in that it emphasizes on  (1) a focus on a specific problem and (2) utilize direct intervention. In brief therapy, the therapist takes responsibility for working more pro-actively with the client in order to treat clinical and subjective conditions faster. It also emphasizes precise observation, utilization of natural resources, and temporary suspension of disbelief to consider new perspectives and multiple viewpoints. Rather than the formal analysis of historical causes of distress, the primary approach of brief therapy is to help the client to view the present from a wider context and to utilize more functional understandings ( By becoming aware of these new understandings, successful clients will de facto undergo spontaneous and generative change. Brief therapy is often highly strategic, exploratory, and solution-based rather than problem-oriented. It is less concerned with how a problem arose than with the current factors sustaining it and preventing change. Brief therapists do not adhere to one "correct" approach, but rather accept that there are many paths, any of which may or may not in combination turn out to be ultimately beneficial.
  • Career counselling and career coaching are similar in nature to traditional counselling. However, the focus is generally on issues such as career exploration, career change, personal career development and other career related issues. Typically when people come for career counselling they know exactly what they want to get out of the process, but are unsure about how it works. Career counselling is the process of helping the candidates to select a course of study that may help them to get into job or make them employable. A career counsellor helps candidates to get into a career that is well suited to their aptitude, personality, interest and skills.  It is the process of making an effective correlation between the internal psychology of a candidate with the external factors of employ ability and courses. Career counsellors work with people from various walks of life, such as adolescents seeking to explore career options, or experienced professionals contemplating a career change. Career counselors typically have a background in vocational psychology or industrial/organizational psychology. The approach of career counselling varies, but will generally include the completion of one or more assessments. These assessments typically include cognitive ability tests, and personality assessments. Two commonly used assessments are the Strong Interest Inventory and the MBTI.
  • Co-counselling  is a grassroots method of personal change based on reciprocal peer counselling. It uses simple methods. Time is shared equally and the essential requirement of the person taking their turn in the role of counsellor is to do their best to listen and give their full attention to the other person. It is not a discussion; the aim is to support the person in the client role to work through their own issues in a mainly self-directed way.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
 
Best Wishes,
Margalit Chordekar
Career Counsellor
EduGroomers Career Counselling

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