“Psychotherapy is an art enlightened by wisdom, theory and research.”
― Barbara Temaner Brodley
What is Psychotherapy and Counselling? According to the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA):
“Psychotherapy and Counselling are professional activities that utilise an interpersonal relationship to enable people to develop self-understanding and to make changes in their lives. Professional counsellors and psychotherapists work within a clearly contracted, principled relationship that enables individuals to obtain assistance in exploring and resolving issues of an interpersonal, intrapsychic, or personal nature. Professional Counselling and Psychotherapy are explicitly contracted and require in-depth training to utilise a range of therapeutic interventions, and should be differentiated from the use of counselling skills by other professionals.”
Individual Psychotherapy: Psychotherapy focuses on our relationships with others, the integration of aspects of our lived experience that we may not be comfortable with and the clarification of our worldview. This is done by building awareness and insight to help with making better choices and positive changes. The therapeutic relationship is the foundation for a safe and positive experience – as it requires in depth and wide ranging work from both the psychotherapist and the client; the primary focus of this work is to assist the client in making sense of their values, motivations, emotions and their ways of being in the world. The work will focus on the clients’ here-and- now lived experiences but may also draw connections to past and future. The relationship between the client and therapist will be used as another major aspect of therapy so that what occurs in the relationship between therapist and client can be mirrored in the client’s real world relationships. As a general but flexible guideline psychotherapy is a longer term process last for 3 or more months.
The link below takes you to a nice video on YouTube, put together by the School of Life on what is psychotherapy.
Individual Counselling: In individual Counselling many of the same processes are used – but the focuses tends to be on specific challenges or problems in living that the client may be facing, or supporting the client to make specific adjustments in their life circumstances, or helping the client in reaching important goals and/or fostering the client’s wellbeing. This is typically achieved through the identification of strengths, development of problem solving skills, and changing unhelpful thoughts, feeling and behaviours. As a general but flexible guideline individual counselling is a short term process lasting 1 to 12 sessions.
What’s the best type of therapy? It’s really about finding the therapist that is the best fit for you. A review on the importance of a good therapeutic relationship;
Relationship Therapy: Research shows that relationships last when people in those relationships become good friends, are not afraid of conflicts but learn to manage them, and when they create ways to support one another’s hopes and plans for the future. The Gottman method of relationship therapy helps those in relationships to accomplish this by paying attention to what they call the “Sound Relationship House”, or the nine skills of healthy relationships. Relationship therapy helps develop these skills. Again time frames are very open and flexible but on average takes around 16 weeks.
The following videos describe the four negative patterns that need to be addressed in relationship therapy.
https://youtu.be/FJDN3PKZ1KE
https://youtu.be/o5OdpPodpNY
Office Hours: Monday, Tuesdays and Thursdays 9am – 7pm, Friday 4pm – 7pm
Standard fees are 130.00 for a 50min Individual session And 150.00 for a couple session. Services are not Medicare rebatable.
Please feel free to contact me on 0468 780 406 for an appointment in my Penrith rooms or email me at charles.webster@tutamail.com
