COUNSELLING – PROFESSIONALS vs CHARLATANS:

Can the public easily tell who are properly qualified counsellors and psychotherapists and who are charlatans? Sadly, the answer is a resounding ‘No’. Unfortunately, the Government has refused to do anything that might help weed out the fake practitioners. It seems that the government’s ‘anti-red tape’ policies are all about pruning the official rule books. They want fewer regulatory bodies; they certainly don’t want to create any new ones. That’s why there isn’t an official Therapists Registration Agency and why there isn’t any way of keeping out the quacks. There is no such thing as a properly vetted list of genuinely qualified counsellors and psychotherapists. Buyer beware! [Read more…]

COUNSELLORS AND PSYCHOTHERAPISTS – PROFESSIONALS OR MAGICIANS?

Whenever we contact a professional we usually have a fair idea about what we are likely to get. Doctors doctor, teachers teach, priests preach, and so on. They, and all the other professionals know what they are supposed to do and the public knows what to expect. This is because every profession, every trade, every calling, has its own accepted area of expertise. Lawyers know the law; surveyors know buildings; bankers know finance. They and all the other professional experts know what they are supposed to know. Equally importantly they know what they don’t know. Furthermore, the established professions all require new entrants to be properly trained and to have reached a basic minimum standard before they can start practicing. Can counsellors and psychotherapists say the same? Are they all properly trained, educated, and qualified? Do their customers know what to expect from them. [Read more…]

IT’S HARD TO ASK FOR HELP

Most of us get depressed from time to time or we might get a bit stressed or anxious. However, sometimes these sorts of feelings can all seem a bit too much. Put simply, we might be finding that our worries are getting on top of us. We have got a problem; possibly one of the common, low-level, mental health issues that life occasionally throws up. It can happen to any of us. However, all too often, people are reluctant to admit that have a mental health problem or ask for some professional help. Somehow, seeing a counsellor or a psychotherapist is something to be ashamed of. It is a ‘bit of a stigma’. [Read more…]

HOW CBT WORKS

Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy, (CBT), is based on a very simple concept. It is this – Cognitive-Behavioural therapists believe that how we think, (COGNITION) affects how we act, (BEHAVIOUR), and conversely, how we BEHAVE, (actions), affects how we THINK, (cognition). In other words, they claim that it is our individual ways of thinking and behaving that makes each of us who we are and what creates our individual ways of being. [Read more…]

HELPING HEROES

I make a practice of providing free help and advice for anyone who has developed a psychological problem as a result of active service in our UK armed forces. It doesn’t matter to me whether they are active or veterans – in my view we all owe them more than we can ever repay. [Read more…]

DEPRESSION

Christmas is over, the New Year celebrations a fading memory, it’s cold, dreary, and freezing – welcome to winter, UK style! Sometimes, when we are struggling through these, the most depressing months of the year, it can be hard to find an upside to life. It’s no wonder that so many of us occasionally feel a bit low, a bit depressed. [Read more…]

BEATING ANXIETY: Part 3:

Unfortunately, sometimes our anxiety and fear levels are so deeply entrenched, and so overwhelmingly incapacitating, that simply managing them, (see last month’s Blog), is not enough. For instance, somebody might be so frightened or so uncomfortable about being in an enclosed space that using a lift or travelling on an aircraft might be an impossibility. Someone else might be so excessively fearful of heights that even standing on a low stool is beyond them. [Read more…]

BEATING ANXIETY: Part 2

Last month I blogged about how anxiety affects us all and about how sometimes it can get out of hand and start to disrupt, even destroy, our lives. As lots of people know only too well, anxiety can be extremely debilitative – psychologically, physiologically, and socially. It can cause us all sorts of personal and behavioural difficulties. That is why I am going to use this month’s blog to talk about anxiety management – about how to ‘tame the tiger’. In other words I’m going to tell you how to govern your anxiety and better still, how to stop your anxiety governing you. [Read more…]

BEATING ANXIETY: Part 1

Anxiety is a serious and very debilitating psychological disorder that makes life very difficult for millions of people in the UK today. It’s also very curable if treated properly. That’s why I’m going to blog about this modern day scourge. This month I am going to talk about how to reduce your background level of anxiety. Learning how to do this is an easily acquirable skill. It’s also an easy to apply self-management technique that can benefit anybody. You don’t have to suffer clinical levels of anxiety; you just have to want a less stressful life. Next month I am going to deal with how to manage your situational anxieties and specific phobias. The following month I am going to talk about how to permanently eliminate specific irrational anxieties and fears and how to stop reacting to your triggers. [Read more…]