Counselling is a relational form of psychotherapy in which conversation is used to convey thoughts and perceptions, to describe feeling states, and to experience the present moment of relationship in a mindful way.  

 

       Describing how you perceive and experience your life and the world to a trained listener, aids inner processing and integration.

 

       Counselling is based on the assumption that the self is constructed, rather than something fixed, and is therefore changeable. The recent discoveries and understandings of neuroplasticity support this assumption.  

 

       We are all the way we are for valid reasons, whether those be nurturing or traumatic.  I work with participants to understand how the self has been created in the present moment by past experience, and to identify entrenched patterns of behaviour or old survival strategies which may limit both personal freedom in the present moment as well as future possibilities.

 

       We all have personal values, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations of ourselves and the world.  To live freely, and to develop and grow in the way we wish, we need to identify whatever limits us and question its validity.

 

       Understanding the influence of the past on the present helps free the self from the limitations of old survival strategies.  To act with freedom allows us to make choices which are consistent with 'who we are' and 'who we want to become'. We find we can imagine and create new visions of the future and create new life meanings.  

 

       Mindfulness is an important component of counselling sessions because its practice allows us to experience, understand, and manage the self in the present moment.