One on One Online Therapy (Counseling)
What can you expect from online therapy?
Well, you can expect:
- One-on-one meetings (e.g. once a week for between 45 and 60 minutes) with your therapist;
- A safe setting where you get the undivided attention of your therapist;
- Focused attention to the agreed upon goals;
- Learning and exploring alternatives;
- Minimum re-experiencing pain and discomfort ; and
- A longer or shorter journey – depending on the yourself and the problem at hand
Online Therapy will help you …
- in finding new ways to cope with stress, anger, depression, anxiety and other emotional pressures;
- in healing old wounds related to alcoholism, incest, and other traumas;
- in getting “unstuck” from the effect of past experiences;
- in developing new ways of dealing with old issues;
- in dealing with grief, loss, loneliness;
- in resolving sexual difficulties;
- in discovering creative ways to address life style challenges;
- in improving your self-identity and boost your self-confidence;
- in clarifying commitments;
- in exploring purpose, meaning and spiritual growth;
- in developing healthy boundaries; and/or
- inhelping you cope with any other challenges that results in overload in your life.
In the end individual counselling is a process of joining resources with a professional therapist in order to get your life under control and to steer it towards a better future.
The basic way in which I work as an online therapist
Though I have therapeutic skills, you are the EXPERT on your own your life! Narrative counselling (the style of therapy I prefer) is a unique approach to therapy – one that builds on the following core concepts:
- We all create stories of our lives… and then we tend to live accordingly. These inner stories constitute the guidelines for how we live.
- They shape the way we think and act… as well as how we make sense of ourselves and the world around us.
- Our stories about ourselves have been shaped by our experiences, circumstances, environment, community and culture.
- Our stories are always based on SELECTED events and therefore never complete.
- We all have some key stories about ourselves that exert a greater influence than other stories.
- We try to fit our experiences into the stories we already have (what we already know).
- Our experience (stories) can become a filter and blind us to feelings, thoughts and behaviours that don’t fit our stories.
- Our stories never represent the full spectrum of what we prefer and are capable of. There are always other and richer stories about us, the world and the people around us – stories which might be silenced by the current stories. When we are empowered to access these alternative stories, we can create new meanings about and for ourselves. And we can also discover new and preferred ways of living.
- There are always material for new stories that we have not yet told ourselves or other people. It is these stories that (when we start to tell and explore them) often free and empower us to think and act in new, more helpful, ways.
- Narrative Therapy uses the stories people bring about themselves and their lives and help them to re-shape new lenses, new stories, new experiences and new futures. It is the role of the therapist to help you look at your stories (i.e. your life) in ways that help you “author” new stories and “re-author” old ones.
- These new stories usually have remarkably healing effects.
The stories we tell about of our lives are the key to the healing or growth process. In the face of serious problems, the idea of hearing or telling stories may seem rather trivial. And it may be hard to believe that conversations about our stories can shape new realities. But they do.
Often your experiences of life are dominated by problem stories (for example: stories of ‘failure’, self-blame, a deficiency in something etc). Narrative therapists look for exceptions to these problem-dominated stories and use these exceptions as entry points into alternative stories (for example: stories of survival, of resilience, resistance, coping or managing etc). Counselling conversations can then assist you to discover alternative ways of understanding your life and recover lost or forgotten experiences of yourself. A narrative therapist possesses technical skills that are used to investigate a range of problems!
In narrative therapy we make sure that we separate the person and the problem – thereby freeing the person from unnecessary guilt. And empowering her/him to take action against the problem.
The Problem (capital letter ‘P’, because the Problem has its own identity)may have a tight grip on your life. However, in our conversations you will soon discover that these brief moments which the Problem does not have all the power are called ‘sparkling events’. The reason for this is that you do have specific skills at your disposal to resist the Problem with. These skills the create new and empowring outcomes!
Won’t it be terrific to discover yours?
Online Therapy… and the Specialized work I do during therapy
Besides my narrative approach in journeying with you, I am also trained in the following techniques and brief protocols:
1. Online Therapy using TRE (Trauma and Tension Releasing Exercises)
Click this link to read more about TRE.
Or visit www.traumaprevention.com
2. Online Therapy using EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing)
Click this link to read more about EMDR.
Or visit http://www.emdr.com and www.emdria.org
3. Online Therapy using Emotion Focused Couple Therapy (EFT)
Click this link to read more about EFT
Or visit www.iceeft.com.
4. Online Therapy utilizing Brainspotting
Click this link to read more about Brainspotting
Or visit www.brainspotting.com.
5. Online Therapy utilizing Biofeedback
Click this link to read more about Biofeedback.
Or visit http://www.biofeedbacksa.co.za.
Click this link to go to the Homepage of Online Therapist in South Africa