Gift yourself healing and embrace wellness through counselling and trauma therapy
Counselling Sessions with Trauma Therapist Karl
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Any question you might have regarding psychotherapy, counselling therapy or the role of a counsellor therapist is valid and worth asking, no matter how simple or stupid it may seem to you or other people. OR as Carl Sagan famously said
“There are naive questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.”
Not everyone may need therapy, but ALL can BENEFIT from therapy.
It’s designed to help with nearly every aspect of life, from the seemingly benign to the most devastating and its benefits are durable and long lasting and don't diminish with time.
Signs that you could benefit from therapy include:
You feel an overwhelming, prolonged sense of helplessness and sadness.
Your problems don’t seem to get better despite your efforts and help from family and friends.
You find it difficult to concentrate on work assignments or to carry out other everyday activities.
You worry excessively, expect the worst, or are constantly on edge.
Your actions, such as drinking too much alcohol, using drugs, or being aggressive, are harming you or others.
Psychotherapy is a collaborative treatment based on the relationship between an individual and a psychologist.
Grounded in dialogue, it applies scientifically validated procedures to help people develop healthier, more effective habits.
it provides a supportive environment that allows you to talk openly with someone who’s objective, neutral, and nonjudgmental.
You and your psychologist will work together to identify and change the thought and behaviour patterns that are keeping you from feeling your best.
By the time you’re done, you will not only have solved the problem that brought you in, but you will have learned new life long coping skills so you can better cope with whatever challenges arise in the future and live a happier, healthier, and more productive life and maintain a better quality of relationships with those around you.
No not at all!. In fact I joke that the moment I give advice, clients should stop coming to me and ask for all their money back.
Advice is freely given, and so often without empathy. We don't need to take the trouble of going for psychotherapy or counselling therapy to a therapist for that. What a counsellor therapist instead does is listen. Helping people create a greater capacity to tolerate stress, and ways to look at things differently. Ultimately while the therapist may be master of the process, the client is the master of his life. People have answers within ourselves, we just need a safe space or catalyst to help us validate that. True therapy helps us to regain control or agency over our own lives.
Ha Ha!. Yes many clients challenge me by asking me similar questions.
The answer I think lies because of the misconceptions around listening especially active listening.
Active listening is a very active two way process. As one author put it it involves making eye contact and literally letting silences breathe.
Like a conductor orchestrating music we let people pause, so they can hear themselves think and let themselves feel—something people normally cover up with words or a phone or a screen.
The relationship between the therapist and the client is an extremely rich, emotional experience.
Thats what you pay for. You need to experience it to believe it! Try it!
Of all Questions I find this the toughest to answer.
Because I don't view therapy as something to fix. Sure people come to get better and they do but once a person discovers therapy.
It is almost like discovering the magic of exercise. Do we stop it once we reach a desired level or weight or fitness.
Therapy is like that. We do not need a therapist continuously. But it is advantageous to keep in contact, for what I call maintenance or tuning up .
The same thing goes for momentum of therapy when people as me how often do I need to come.
Everything depends on where you are in your life and how fast or serious the problem is and the support and resources you have and your own processing speed. Once the main work is done the frequency begins to taper.
Therapy normally for most clients is once a week..
As someone put it therapy is like exercising, the more consistently you go, the stronger you become. It’s like training a muscle, except that muscle is your brain.
Great that you are in a great space, what other place than to take a breather and clear your cupboard. Whatever we may portray outside, we all have scars, that our body remembers but our mind might have forgotten as the famous Dr. Bessel van Volk's research has shown.
I speak of therapy using the JOHARI window.
Therapy provides one with an important perspective which simply cannot be available to ourselves. Like we need a mirror to see ourselves we will always have blindspots which others can see and we can't see or there will be parts of your life that both cant see, which is a wonderful place from which to explore.
Some authors compare therapy to a life audit from a trained, unbiased professional who has the clients best interest in mind.
A therapist is — someone that can piece together correlations and causations for behaviour and feelings that I may not have realised otherwise.
Hence often the best sessions happen when there is no firefighting.
When there is no major issue at hand, just an open minded exploration without a list of topics or an agenda.
We experience loss throughout life, whatever that may look like.
And it may be something literal like a death, but it could also be the death of a dream or the loss of a narrative we wanted for our lives.
What happens so often is that people minimise their grief; they feel like if it isn’t something tangible, like death, it’s not worth our attention. But that’s not true. There’s a myth in our culture about Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her stages of grieving—like we’re going to go through these stages of grieving and then get to a place of acceptance or closure. Grief doesn’t work like that—it’s integrated into the fabric of our lives. When people have feelings of grief, they may want to get rid of them. But I try to help people live with the loss, to acknowledge it and not get submerged by it—to integrate it into the joy and other things in their life. That’s what’s most helpful.
For me it is very simple. Although the world has become flatter, there is a feeling of loneniness I pick up coming from a noticeable lack of connection.
I think people are feeling a lot of depression and anxiety because they aren’t being nurtured by connection. We’ve lost that sense of community that used to be so inherent—at least in my parents’ generation—where you had neighbourhoods, and you’d go outside and kids would play. I’m not idealising the past, but I think the one thing the past did have was a greater sense of organic community. Nowadays, because we move around so much, we don’t necessarily put down roots in the same way. And each family becomes its own little silo. We aren’t just in each other’s lives organically. Then add technology to that, and people are not having many “I/thou” interactions, where you make eye contact and you’re not distracted by your phone on the table pinging or dinging or vibrating or by the screen on the wall in the restaurant. We lose that unstructured downtime, where we might run into people and get in a conversation or go take a walk. I’m not anti-technology, but I think that people feeling disconnected contributes to a lot of the low-lying depression and anxiety I see.
Understanding Trauma: A Guide to Working with a Trauma Therapist
Defining Trauma
Trauma therapy involves helping clients understand trauma in relatable terms:
Internalized Trauma
Clients often internalize traumatic experiences, leading to negative self-beliefs:
Understanding Dysregulation
Trauma can dysregulate the nervous system, leading to various coping mechanisms:
Benefits of Working with a Trauma Therapist
Collaborating with a trauma therapist, like myself, offers a path to:
By addressing trauma with a qualified therapist, individuals can regain a sense of safety and control over their lives.
Taking the first step into therapy is both exciting and courageous. Yet, even after choosing a therapist, navigating the process can feel daunting, filled with uncertainties. Therapists possess an advantage in the therapy room, armed with extensive knowledge and experience. Clients, however, embark on a learning journey. Here are 12 insights to help you navigate the therapeutic process:
Remember, therapy is a collaborative journey. Embrace each session as an opportunity for self-discovery and personal growth.