What is Counselling?
Counselling is a process that enables a person to calmly address their problems and issues in a supportive environment so that a greater understanding can be achieved. This can assist a person to make positive changes or it may help someone accept a difficult situation and become more resilient.
Counselling is often sought at times of change or crisis, it involves talking with a professionally trained person who can support you to work towards finding a solution or help to create conditions that will assist you to better understand or improve your circumstances.
Appointments are usually one hour in length are made on weekly basis.
The counsellor will work supportively with you to assist you to identify address your issues. Counsellors at Doutta Galla are professionally qualified and are able to work with individuals, couples, young people and children according to the need.
Some Reasons for Attending Counselling
Life Crisis
Individuals can often find adjusting to new circumstances in life difficult and counselling can be a way to make sense of change and develop strategies of coping.
Depression
Depression is characterised by low mood and a drop in self-esteem. Thoughts can be overly self-critical. Often there is an inability to enjoy life and there can be accompanying feelings of pessimism about the future. Sometimes people are unable to feel much at all!
Depression can also be marked by feelings of irritability, negativity and hostility - causing people become withdrawn and insecure. While none of these feelings are in themselves unusual, it is their persistance and intensity that distinguishes them from 'normal' unhappiness. Quite simply if you are suffering from depression you are unable to ‘pull up your socks” or “shake it off'. There is a growing awareness of the magnitude of depression in society with clinical research supporting counselling as a means of improving many of its symptoms. For more information about depression visit the Beyondblue Website.
Anxiety
Anxiety and worry are fundamental human emotions. Anxiety has a very healthy purpose in that if we did not feel anxious about certain situations then we would risk injuring ourselves by not avoiding danger. Similarly, if we had no anxiety about ourselves in relation to others we might well behave with great insensitivity.
Anxiety can however become excessive and unhealthy. There are specific types of anxiety, which may indicate that a person is suffering unduly. One type is general anxiety, whereby a person is anxious about many aspects of life. Another is worry when a person continually thinks over a problem beyond what is needed to produce a solution. Specific Anxiety is when there is anxiety over a certain situation such as exams, social situations etc. Phobia is an excessive fear of a particular situation or item. Hypochondria is an anxiety about suffering illness. Panic attacks are a sudden uncontrollable triggering of physical anxiety symptoms. Counsellors at Doutta Galla utilise general and specific methods of working with anxiety sufferers, selecting appropriate interventions depending on the particular problems experienced by each client. To find out more about anxiety, please visit the Anxiety Disorder Association of Victoria website.
Stress
There are many different types of stress. There is cumulative stress and there is the stress that can arise from dramatic or critical incidences. Counselling often utilises stress management techniques to reduce stress. These techniques can be about learning about our behaviours and reactions that lead to stressful situations or they can involve learning the practice of physical and mental relaxation.
Grief and Loss
It is normal to experience grief and loss when someone or something that we care dearly about is taken away. Grief and loss becomes an issue when feelings of sadness and hopelessness persist. Counselling can assist a person to gain a different or new perspective of their new situation whereby it is possible to accept loss and therefore be more open to the experience of happiness.
Self Esteem and Confidence Issues
Counsellors at Doutta Galla recognise the importance of working on developing positive emotions. There is much research to suggest that when we are able to achieve win-win situations with others, we experience positive emotions such as joy, cheer, and contentment. These can help to generate a mind-set that broadens and builds enduring intellectual and social resources. The role of the Counsellor therefore can be to motivate and challenge individuals to reframe life experiences and to change habitual ways of reacting. What follows is the development of natural buffers against misfortune and the experience of negative emotion, it is then possible move, in life, up to a new and more positive plane of existence.
Anger Management
An anger problem is any anger-related behaviour that can be hurtful to either others or ourselves. Anger problems can alienate loved ones, undermine the credibility of the person who has the anger problem and result in consequences that punish everyone. Misdirecting anger is something all of us can do and it often happens around our families, friends or colleagues. Counsellors generally regard anger as a defence mechanism that signals us when we are getting into physically or emotionally unsafe situations. It is worth contacting a counsellor if you are:
Physically or emotionally abusing another person
Accepting physical or emotional abuse from another person
Attempting to control or dominate other people
Feeling controlled or dominated by someone
Feeling attacked, unfairly criticised or shamed
Feeling the need to shame others
Having an inability to comfortably relate to other people
Feeling "uncontrollable" rage
Communication Problems
Most relationship difficulties arise from the fact that people communicate differently. Counselling is an effective, safe and supportive environment to explore your particular style of communicating and how it can be improved.