Common problems
There are commonly identified problem areas in which many individuals need help. Some of these are listed below. Most of us, however, can name a cluster of issues when we feel bad. These are not easily defined by a single problem description or diagnostic definition. For example, an experience of long-term anxiety and depression could be related to unresolved relationship issues and/or hereditary/family background factors and/or poor workplace training and/or poor self-care/lifestyle factors etc etc. Counselling helps ‘clarify the mess’, prioritise current issues, provide support and understanding and develop strategies to go positively forward with.
There is much in life that is challenging and painful. With the best will in the world, some situations may take a long while to shift or be literally impossible to change. Regardless of what you believe you can or cannot change in your external life, I believe counselling can help you achieve a ‘improved experience of life’.
With training in better thinking, more helpful attitudes and useful strategies, many problems that have been ‘tolerated’ a long while, will appear different and more amenable to change. Meeting regularly with a skilled counsellor/therapist, helps set a positive direction by introducing skill mastery, insight and new perspectives. New ‘tools for your toolbox’, if you like. It is remarkable how previously daunting challenges are made easier by having the ‘right tools’ handy along with the confidence to use them.
There needs to be a positive chemistry, a compatibility of sorts, between counsellor and the person. I recommend speaking on the phone or corresponding via email to at least three counsellors to get a feel as to whether they are right for you. I also recommend not persisting in counselling with someone who seems to make you feel uncomfortable, inferior or you plain dislike. Not all counsellors were created equal, as they say, and counsellors, like friends, should be thoughtfully chosen. I know when I have sought counselling at various points in my life, I have been decidedly fussy in choosing someone.
Counselling can help couples get off the misery-go-round of familiar negative patterns, aggravations and disappointments. Relationship counselling can also assist resolving stalled joint decision-making within relationship (e.g. regarding relocating, investing, procreating or in-law issues) in an otherwise conflict free relationship.
My partner counselling approach begins with an individual session each, where you can really ‘let rip’ on your issues without repercussions. This serves as a ‘de-briefing’ for you and a fact finding mission for me. I gather information regarding the history of issues in the relationship from your perspective and enquire into the patterns/personalities in your birth/childhood family, as well as your ‘other relationships’ history.
In the first joint session I feedback my interpretation of this ‘preliminary assessment’ information. In the light of the problems (as each of you see them), I highlight where you agree what the problems/causes are and where you disagree. In further sessions I attempt to enlighten you as to why these problems are arising by in the light of your childhood conditioning or ‘culture of relationship’ your parents/carers/siblings demonstrated. As much as we don’t like to admit it, our parents/carers influence our performance in relationship in fundamental ways.
Subsequent sessions I also begin to coach you in ‘the art of listening’ . A way to stay connected with your partner and attentive, even when you are hearing things you disagree with or plain don’t like. To be acknowledged (rather than interrupted or ignored), when you have something to say to you partner, creates enormous goodwill and can (amazingly) reduce or eliminate arguments.
Depression and sadness
If you are sad, dispirited, feeling flat and even angry, unenthusiastic or cynical about life and this has persisted for weeks or longer and has come and for a much longer period, chances are you are depressed. These comments about depression are not intended as an authoritative description/definition on the topic, they are meant to introduce my style of counseling response to depression and recurrent sadness.
There are many websites dealing with the definition of depressive illness (eg blackdog.com.au). I recommend you google ‘depression’ and find out all you can on the topic before seeking the services of a counsellor.
My approach in counselling is to first of all, find out the severity and type of depression you have. Then design a program to assist you to manage your depression. This would probably be in conjunction with your GP, if your depression is of a type that may be better managed with medication along with psychotherapy.
Managing depression for the sufferer is generally about managing immediate life situations (including a recent triggering event) as well as managing thoughts, lifestyle (including diet and exercise). In addition, investigating whether medication can be of assistance (short-term or long-term) is usually recommended.
If you are suffering depression, a counsellor can help by supporting you to manage and monitor your mood and choose behaviours and thoughts that minimise depression’s hold over your life. Conversely counselling can help you identify and minimise thinking and acting in ways that entrenches a low mood.
I don’t do counselling for depression any justice in this brief introduction to the topic. Hopefully, you will get a sense of some of my public perspectives on the topic anyhow.
Burnout and fatigue
Where our duties are put in front of our personal needs for long periods of time, we are candidates for fatigue. Long term fatigue can end in burnout. The original definition of burnout comes from Herbert Freudenberger (1980) who named an associated cluster of symptoms, including emotional exhaustion, pessimism, low energy, negative attitudes, constant dissatisfaction as well as an incapacity to ‘connect’ with others and positively relate.
For me, burnout assistance provides objectivity, strategy and support. I would look at why the burnout progressed in the first place exploring systemic issues at work and home. In addition I would assist insight to develop as to why a person let it get this far. Furthermore I would provide support and guidance for a person to develop tailored (situationally appropriate) strategies and durable skills that assist to prevent future burnout episodes.
Stress and anxiety
Stress is a normal part of life. In small quantities, stress is good — it can motivate you and help you be more productive. However, too much stress, or a strong response to stress, is harmful. It can set you up for general poor health as well as specific physical or psychological illnesses like infection, heart disease, or depression.
Challenging relationships and workplaces can lead to chronic stress, as can major life events, such as death of a parent, loss of livelihood, migration, war, disaster or persecution. Health issues can underly major stress as well, such as major illness or surgery, over-active thyroid, low blood sugar, chronic pain, and post-accident rehabilitation challenges. Persistent and unrelenting stress often leads to chronic anxiety and unhealthy ‘coping’ behaviours such as overuse of alcohol or drugs.
Counselling for stress, engages, refines and extends individuals’ existing skills and capacities, to optimise adaptive responses to stressful scenarios in life. This process has it’s beginnings, working phase and ending. Starting with fact gathering; the person telling their story and the counsellor enquiring about additional elements (e.g. earlier stress scenarios, level of support outside of counselling, what has been tried before).
No single counselling journey is the same in my experience, therefore I don’t formularise my response to people with chronic stress. Suffice to say, my intention is to equip a person to better respond to current challenges as well as creating enduring new skills and understanding that is life enhancing.
Family therapy is a style of psychotherapy designed to identify family patterns that contribute to a behavior disorder or psychological distress and help family members break those habits. Family therapy involves discussion and problem-solving sessions with the family. Some of these sessions may be as a group, in couples, or one on one. In family therapy, the web of interpersonal relationships is examined and, ideally, communication is strengthened within the family.
Family therapy theory, in explaining symptoms of distress, describes family members as a series of inter-connected vessels. When ‘pressure’ isn’t expressed in one vessel, it may cause another to overflow. It goes some way to explaining why therapists have this notion of distinguishing ‘presenting problems’ from ‘underlying problems’ when developing for example, an assessment of a distressed adolescent.
Often a family in overwhelm comes for family therapy to make sense of the various distresses experienced (and dealt with differently) by family members. Family therapy can be effective when a collective trauma or stress has been experienced by the family. Examples in my experience have included death of a sibling, separation of parents, a car accident involving family members and a terminal illness or progressive disease suffered by a family member.
Divorce and separation
Divorce and separation present some of the most stressful and challenging times of our lives. Many couples have tried counselling before choosing to separate. Counselling however, can still assist you as an individual, couple or family, with the emotional and practical challenges of your decision to separate.
(Click on above link for more information.)
Parenting support
Counselling helps create a healthy and nurturing family dynamic so all family members experience the family unit as more of a safe haven from stress, rather than a major source of it.
In my experience, parenting support is part and parcel of a general counselling relationship. Counsellor assessment of parents in distress generally look at ways a parent can support themselves better. Besides refining parenting skills, these include: developing a support network, improving self-organising and stress management. Areas of self-care and lifestyle factors are also looked at. E.g. developing satisfying interests, fitness and dietary care, and financial/career issues.
Other areas to explore would be parental teamwork, relationship stress and other life stressors. Counselling may also explore extending the ways children are enjoyed, appreciated and connected with, by one or both parent
Addiction
You can be addicted to anything not just substances like alcohol, drugs or tobacco. More common addictions are behaviours (comfort eating, gambling, internet porn bingeing, even criticising yourself!) My efforts with people suffering a ‘very bad habit’, is devoted initially to exploring what are the payoffs for this habit. I don’t carry judgements about addictive behaviours. The focus for me is on assisting you to create the richest and most fulfilling life possible for yourself, whatever you conceive that to be.
Finding out what you get out of the repeated ‘consumption’ is followed by looking at where it first arose and what was happening in your life at that time. Usually there are unresolved issues lurking right back there which your ‘bad habits’ papered over. It’s not so much as looking backwards as charting a course forwards, usually into areas you were afraid to go before.
Counselling for addiction aims to support you to question and clarify what you want from life in the short to medium term and support you to create the conditions for this to unfold. eg: Fictitious case example: ‘Bert’ is a sexually acting out (serial affairs) stressed out young father. It turned out that he was assisted to discover 3 things: deeper trust, sensuality and depth in his marriage; manage his communication, bonding and activities with his children better and assert himself at work so he didn’t have to be superman to earn the right to stay in the job.
Bert learnt to see that the sexual acting out was a symptom of his distress. A response to feeling exploited at work, taken for granted at home, and disempowered in life generally (or elements of insight along these lines). He also learnt that his father took to alcohol (or withdrew) to escape a boring job, kids he was clueless in dealing with and a marriage that disappointed. This all helped to make real and lasting changes in his life that made sense to him and were definitely enriching and satisfying to sustain. Bert was no longer a flirt 
because it no longer made sense or ‘felt right’ to do this.
Chemical addictions are a little different in that structures, like commitments to not use or minimise alcohol use are very much part of the therapy. I don’t work with active ‘users’ or counsel people who are intoxicated. Generally alcohol or other drug users are well served in the public domain with government funded services. Having said that you may be a ‘functional alcoholic’ (if there is any such thing), hidden amongst the other 2 million Australians. I do a lot of work with those who wish to reduce ’self-medicating’ daily or nearly daily with alcohol. You may have been drinking alcohol for years to alleviate discomfort such as stress, depression, uninspiring relationship, social anxiety or just to fit in. My counselling work with you would focus on creating several alcohol free days in a week and ’skilling up’ in alternative ways to respond to the above painful scenarios.
‘Numbing out and dumbing down’ with alcohol doesn’t deliver a richer life. It helps you avoid addressing issues like social anxiety, relationship disappointments, self-esteem struggles or depression. It takes a fair bit of guts and determination to recognise this. Imagining there is a better life available to you and darn well doing something about it takes a fair bit of focus. Counselling can assist you to stick with your ‘deepest knowing on this score’. Offering coaching, support, challenge, encouragement and reality checks along the way.
Hope that offers some sense of my counselling work on addiction.
Click the link above for more information on addiction.
Grief and loss
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Sleeping disorders
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Phobias and fears
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Major life decisions
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Workplace conflict
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Giving up smoking
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Problem gambling
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Problem drinking
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Staff issues
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Vocational assessment
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Career planning
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Workplace rehabilitation
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Post traumatic stress disorder
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Confidence and self-esteem
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Panic attacks
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Pain management
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Workplace harrassment and bullying
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