Areas of Focus
How Can Counseling Help?
Asking these questions helps determine a rational starting point:
- Have I tried changes on my own or with other therapists and they failed?
- Have I acted in problematic ways that I never intended?
- Have I lived in ways that cause my problems to persist?
- Have I been experiencing intense shame and regret that interferes with life?
- Have I been experiencing deep sadness and depression that interferes with life?
- Have I been experiencing anxiety and worry that interferes with life?
- Have I been confused, pushing people away?
- Has someone I love encouraged me to seek counseling?
Motivations for Counseling
- Anxiety and Depression
- Grief, Loss and Bereavement
- Managing Stress and Change
- Family, Parenting and Divorce
- Anger Education and Management
- Relationship Aggression and Abuse
- Behavioral and Substance Addictions
- Phases of Life and Developmental Change
- Academics, Education, Employment, Career, Finances
Purposes and Premises of Counseling
- Affirms as self-evident that people are generally healthy, seeking wisdom, positive change and maturity
- Brings ways of learning, helping to improve emotional, mental, relational and spiritual growth and wellbeing
- Helps develop greater understanding of the nature of the mind, and integrating learned experience in life
- Respects people as possessing natural and divine drives toward growth, learning and flourishing as a human being
- Teaches greater understanding of relationships between cognition, perception, behavior and emotion
Cultivating a Healthy Mind
- The Human Condition: To one degree or another, we all want essentially the same things out of life: love, respect, happiness, a sense of fairness and justice, a sense of well-being, a sense of purpose and value, and the feeling of being connected to something substantial, lasting, and secure. And, as certain as it is that none of us will get what we perceive to be our rightful share of these things all the time, it is just as certain that we all balk at accepting this fact. It is in our apprehending and appreciating the Human Condition where the journey of effective Counseling begins.
- Language matters: Counseling and Psychotherapy are terms often used interchangeably, however, there are important differences for you to consider:
- Counseling is a practice of helping people make concrete decisions and plan practical actions to improve their well-being, resolve crises, prevent and alleviate distress and difficulty with adjustments, and support capacities and abilities to function in life.
- Psychotherapy, or psychological therapy, is the treatment of mental or emotional disorders or of related bodily ills by psychological means, for the purpose of assisting people to modify their behaviors, cognitions, emotions, and other personal characteristics. There can be an expectation therapists will ‘do something’ although the specific details and exact workings of ‘something’ may not be transparent, and seem esoteric or vague.
- The words “Therapy” and “Psychotherapy” refer to healing, and the treatment or cure for an injury or illness, assuming people are generally unwell. There is a risk here for over-pathologizing ordinary human experiences of pain and suffering which can interfere with ordinary growth and development as part of a greater natural process of living out life. It is my practice to regard all people in counseling as being whole, healthy and capable, despite ordinary human experiences of pain and suffering, rather than affirm distorted self-limiting beliefs of being helplessly diseased, mentally ill or wounded.
