What is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is intended to assist people in healing and making changes to live a more fulfilling life.

There are many different types of psychotherapy. They are all ways of helping people to overcome stress, emotional problems, relationship problems or troublesome habits. What they have in common is that they are all treatments based on talking to another person and sometimes doing things together.

Psychotherapy focuses on the feelings we have about other people, especially our family and those we are close to. Treatment involves discussing past experiences and how these may have led to our present situation and also how these past experiences may be affecting our life now. The understanding gained frees the person to make choices about what happens in the future.

People's problems will often not be theirs alone, but are often the result of relationship problems in a marriage, partnership or family. By focusing very clearly on the relationships involved, and by involving all the people concerned, family and marital family therapy seek to help those relationships to work better.

Psychotherapists may use a combination of techniques to suit the individual, and people may progress from say individual to group therapy, or marital work to individual treatment.

What actually happens?

In individual psychotherapy , one client and one therapist talk together in a quiet room, about the issues which are important for the client.

In group therapy, several people with similar sorts of problems meet regularly with a therapist or therapists. These sessions may be longer than in individual psychotherapy. Group therapy may appear less intimate, but in fact it is the best treatment for some problems. The experience of discovering one is not alone, and of being able to help other people, is powerfully encouraging and is often the first step towards getting better.

In marital therapy, a therapist or pair of therapist will meet with a married or committed couple so that they can work on their problems jointly.

In family therapy, the whole family will be involved usually talking over their difficulties with a pair of therapists.

Sessions take place either on the Institute’s premises or by phone if the client prefers this or is travelling.

What is counselling?

In the context of mental health, "counselling" is generally used to denote a relatively brief treatment that is focused most upon behaviour. It often targets a particular symptom or problematic situation and offers suggestions and advice for dealing with it.

To us, counselling is more educational and professional guidance or advice giving. The territory the counselor covers is more specialized, i.e., school guidance counseling, addiction program counseling to name a few examples. Often there is a structure of the work that encompasses educational interaction and a defined structure. The counselor will assist the person in his or her recovery and this will be the main focus of the intervention. Marital issues, depression, anxiety may or may not be addressed but it is not the focus of the intervention.

What is coaching?

“A dream is just a dream. A goal is dream with a plan and a deadline.”
Harvey Mackay

Coaching combines the best of many areas of personal development.

Coaching is a goal-oriented method to clarify issues in areas of personal or professional development.

It is a conversation about the future rather than the past.

In a coaching situation the client looks at the here and now. The coach helps the client to find his/her own answers through questions like:

What is my current situation?
What is right, what is wrong?
What is missing/what could be eliminated?
What are my plans?
What can I do to realize them?

The coach is alongside the client supporting and encouraging; any necessary actions are decided by the client.

The coach sees more talent and ability within the client than the coachee and helps to draw from his or her own resources.

Coaching is an ongoing partnership that helps clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and/or professional lives.

It is not therapy and involves less time.

Get a coach if:

You are stuck with a problem (big or small)
Want to improve your career prospects
Keep getting caught in the same situation over and over again
Have plans, dreams, ideas but don’t know how to get them off the ground
Feel uneasy at work or at home but can’t put your finger on it Want to get more out of your life