What therapy? 

You might ask yourself what kind of therapy would benefit you most.
This question is not always easy to answer as one model does not fit everybody. After the assessment session I will discuss with you what model of counselling might be suitable for you and your current problem.

Please find below a description of all models of counselling I use.

What is TA?

The following definition is suggested by the International Transactional Analysis Association, ITA: ‘Transactional Analysis is a theory of personality and systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change.’ ( ITA News February 2008, pa 28, section 2-The Code of Ethics)

 ‘As a theory of personality, TA gives us a picture of how people are structured psychologically. To do so it uses a three-part model known as the Ego-State Model. The same model helps us to understand how people function- how they express their personality in terms of behavior.’ (Steward and Joines (1987)  

 

TA, a humanistic model.......

TA is fundamentally a humanistic/existential model with its primary emphasis on human freedom and autonomy and provides a framework for observing what goes on between and inside people in order to help them make changes. In 1966 Berne described in one of his most popular books, ‘Principles of Group Treatment’ (1966) the first systematic use of TA in groups, drawing on more than 20 years of clinical experience of group psychotherapy in various settings. 

TA concepts are often shared with clients, so there is a talking with rather than talking at clients. In this way the content and process of psychotherapy and counselling are demystified and developed into a shared endeavor.

TA places emphasis on taking personal responsibility for one's experience and in so doing puts the client in a central, proactive and therefore potentially powerful role within the counselling relationship. In this respect, TA is also referred to as a decisional model. It assumes that if we are personally responsible for our own experience, we must be responsible for the choices and decisions that we make about how we behave, how we feel, how we think and what we believe.

 In TA the therapist facilitates the forming of a contract for specific changes desired by the client. The objective is to eliminate dysfunctional behaviors, establish and reinforce positive relationship styles and healthy functioning. Transactional Analysts are trained to use the many psychotherapeutic tools, ranging from psychodynamic to cognitive behavioral methods in effective and potent ways.

For more information about TA please visit:  http://www.ita.org.uk

 

What is PCC (Person Centered Counselling)?

 

The philosophical assumptions that underpin Person Centered Counselling are:

 

1.       Human nature is essentially constructive and social

2.       Self regard is a basic human need

3.       People are motivated to seek the truth

4.        Perception determines experience and behavior

5.      Individuals should be related to as a whole person

 

 ‘Roger’s ‘Three Core Conditions’ build the foundation of my counselling practice, which are:

·         Be genuine and congruent

‘Congruence is the state of being of the counsellor when her outwards responses to her client consistently match the inner feelings and sensations which she has in relation to the client.’ (Dave Mearns and Brian Thorne: Person Centred Counselling in Action)

·         Offer unconditional positive regard

‘The counselor who holds this attitude deeply values the humanity of her clients and is not deflected in that valuing of any particular client behavior. The attitude manifests itself in the counsellors consistent enduring warmth towards the client. ‘(Dave Mearns and Brian Thorne: Person Centred Counselling in Action)

·         Feel and communicate  deep emphatic understanding:

‘ Empathy is a continuing process whereby the counselor lays aside her own way of experiencing and perceiving reality, preferring to sense and respond to the experiences and perceptions of the client. This sensing may be intense and enduring with the counselor actually experiencing the client’s thoughts and feelings as powerful as they had originated in herself.’ (Dave Mearns and Brian Thorne: Person Centred Counselling in Action)

 

 How do I integrate the Person Centred framework into my counselling/psychotherapy practice?

I use Roger’s ‘Core Conditions’ in my every day practice. I communicate deep empathic understanding by providing a listening ear especially when clients spend a long time voicing their distress.

I take great care in building the relationship because I believe that in order to feel safe enough to engage in deeper work, the client practitioner relationship needs to be of good quality and integrity.  

What is CBT?

 

The British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP) gives the following definition:

‘The cognitive component in the cognitive behavioural psychotherapies refers to how people think about and create meaning about situations, symptoms and events in their lives and develop beliefs about themselves, others and the world. Cognitive therapy uses techniques to help people become more aware of how they reason, and the kinds of automatic thought that spring to mind and give meaning to things.

Cognitive interventions use a style of questioning to probe for peoples’ meanings and use this to stimulate alternative viewpoints or ideas. This is called ‘guided discovery’, and involves exploring and reflecting on the style of reasoning and thinking, and possibilities to think differently and more helpfully. On the basis of these alternatives people carry out behavioural experiments to test out the accuracy of these alternatives, and thus adopt new ways of perceiving and acting. Overall the intention is to move away from more extreme and unhelpful ways of seeing things to more helpful and balanced conclusions.

The behavioural component in the cognitive behavioural psychotherapies refers to the way in which people respond when distressed. Responses such as avoidance, reduced activity and unhelpful behaviours can act to keep the problems going or worsen how the person feels. CBT practitioners aim to help the person feel safe enough to gradually test out their assumptions and fears and change their behaviours. For example this might include helping people to gradually face feared or avoided situations as a means to reducing anxiety and learning new behavioural skills to tackle problems.

Importantly the cognitive and behavioural psychotherapies aim to directly target distressing symptoms, reduce distress, re-evaluate thinking and promote helpful behavioural responses by offering problem focussed skills based treatment interventions.’
For more information about CBT please visit: http://www.babcp.com

 

What is REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy)?

 

REBT was originally developed by Albert Ellis, born 1913 in Pittsburgh and raised in New York. Ellis became interested in Counselling after completing of a psychology program at Columbia University.

He published his first successful book called the ‘Art of Science and Love’ in 1960 and went into writing 54 books and more than 600 articles on REBT. Ellis, who is now 95 years of age, is the founder of the Albert Ellis Institute in New York, which promotes his vision of enhancing emotional growth through the delivery of REBT and CBT. 

The underlying theory of REBT’ is that human beings have a strong life force and desire to achieve some degree of happiness. However, they are also likely to adopt irrational beliefs and behaviors which stand in the way of achieving their goals and purposes, often taking the form of extreme or dogmatic 'must', 'should', or 'ought'.  REBT differentiates between healthy negative emotions (like sadness or regret or concern) and unhealthy negative emotions (like depression or guilt or anxiety). The person with the healthy negative emotions would come to the conclusion that it is sad that this has happened, but it is not awful and that they are still able to function. The person who adopts an unhealthy negative belief concludes that the circumstances are intolerable and so awful that they feel unable to function. REBT philosophy views individuals as having the power to change their unhealthy negative beliefs, and thereby transform   psychological suffering into psychological health, but that they are also responsible for creating their own psychological disturbance as a matter of choice.  This implies that individuals consciously or unconsciously select both rational beliefs and irrational beliefs when negative events occur. REBT uses the ABC framework to distinguish between the activating events (A), our belief about them (B) and the cognitive, emotional or behavioral consequences of our beliefs (C). This implies the logical consequence that present life conditions strongly affect but don’t disturb the person, but it is the individual's responses which disturb them.

The basic process of change with REBT begins for the client by acknowledging the existence of a problem. The client is then encouraged by the therapist to identify the underlying irrational belief which caused the original problem.  This teaches the client to distinguish between irrational and rational belief and to understand why a rational alternative would be preferable.  Challenging  irrational beliefs and implementing a variety of cognitive, behavioral, emotive and imagery techniques is part of the learning process in REBT which is considered to be a directive approach as it  actively disputes the client's irrational beliefs. Clients are also expected to put what they have learned into practice in form of completing homework assignments.

For more information about REBT please visit: http://www.albertellisinstitute.org

What is TIR (Traumatic Incident Reduction)

TIR was developed by the American psychiatrist Frank Gerbode in 1986. Controlled research on TIR has illustrated its efficiency as treatment for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and other traumatic incidents. TIR is a directive, person focussed approach. In TIR person focussed means that the individual is considered to be the expert of their own experience. TIR sessions are structured and include guiding the client to the exposure of the trauma in a structured way.

The nature of trauma

In TIR trauma and stress is defined when external or internal demands exceeds the person’s normal ability to cope or to maintain his/her normal ability to cope or function. If we see our brain as an information processing system, trauma can be described as an overwhelming input of information, which can’t be processed when the trauma happens. Because the trauma is not processed, the memory will be sort of ‘frozen’ and can cause all sort of unpleasant disturbances like flash backs, anxiety, or being on alert at all times and unable to relax. In TIR we use techniques that help to expose and process the ‘frozen’ memory.

The importance exposure in TIR

In trauma therapy exposure usually means to review the traumatic memory, to express traumatic memory in form of talking, writing, or the use of art work like drawing. In TIR exposure is achieved by instructing the client to review the trauma silently from the beginning to the end and then tell the counsellor what happened. The client is instructed to do this repeatedly until an end point is reached. In TIR the client has reached an end point when the client feels an improvement in emotional state, and an ability to be more present. The client is called a ‘viewer ‘because he/she reviews the contend of his traumatic incident in form of images, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, feelings and thoughts. The viewing of the traumatic experience provides the intense exposure necessary for the client to fully process and make sense of the traumatic material. The purpose of viewing is to relieve charge, find insight, increase awareness and improve ability. 

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The length of TIR sessions

Exposure based treatment in TIR usually takes up to 90 minutes or longer instead of the classical 50 minutes for other types of counselling and psychotherapy. Research indicated that 90 minutes usually allows enough time for emotions to reach its peak and then begin to drop so that at the end of the session the level of negative emotion is less than in the beginning of the session, thus safeguarding against re-traumatisation.

In which areas can TIR help?

TIR can help to reduce and eliminate unwanted flash backs, anxieties and somatic symptoms resulting from trauma’s and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It also can be beneficial for relationship breakups, bereavement, phobias and depression.

For more information about TIR please visit: http://www.tir.org.uk 

For more information please click the link below:
ulrike@approachcounsellingandpsychotherapy.co.uk

or call Ulrike on: 07904554468