Counselling Approach

"The ultimate goal of my therapy is to help people move away from compulsive, self-limiting lifestyles so that they can expand their lives and tolerate more gratification in reality....the process of identifying the "voice" and the associated feelings of self-hatred and rage toward the self, combined with corrective strategies of behavioral change, significantly expand the client's boundaries and bring about a more positive sense of self." - Robert Firestone

People commonly come to counselling because they:

• feel depressed and/or anxious
• are experiencing grief and loss
• have been traumatized in childhood or adulthood
• struggle with addictive behaviour
• want help dealing with anger
• suffer from low self-esteem
• experience crippling guilt
• desire help dealing wtih stress
• struggle with relationship conflict and want better communication
• want to feel more trusting and intimate
• feel trapped in an unhappy relationship
• have sexual problems
• have self-defeating / self-destructive behaviour
• are having difficulty adjusting to life events or changes

My core training in the department of Counselling Psychology was in the Person-Centered approach to Counselling (I instructed students in this approach for several years). In Person-Centered Counselling, listening to the client with acceptance, respect, and positive regard is fundamental to client change. Because of this training, I strive to establish an accepting, compassionate, therapeutic relationship in which the client's experience is understood, respected, and validated. Listening to the client in a compassionate and accepting manner forms the foundation of my approach to Counselling.

In working with people, I provide both support and challenge. On the one hand, I provide a supportive environment by empathizing deeply with peoples' difficulties; on the other hand, I challenge people to take responsibility for their growth by confronting themselves. I draw upon the variety of approaches and techniques in which I have been trained, including Person-Centered, Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), gestalt, hypnosis, marital/family systems, and EMDR. Although I use a wide range of interventions for specific problems (e.g., EMDR for trauma), my primary approach is depth-cognitive-affective-behavioral. Called Voice Therapy because it encourages people to verbalize aloud the negative thought process that we all have, this approach addresses the psychological defenses that underlie emotional problems, the negative thought process (negative inner voice or "voice") and associated emotions that maintains these defenses, and the importance of corrective suggestions for behavioral change (see www.glendon.org for more information about Robert Firestone's Voice Therapy). All emotional difficulties in adult life are rooted in painful experiences (trauma) in childhood, and involve emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of experience. I subscribe to Voice Therapy as my primary approach because it addresses not only childhood trauma, but also the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of experience.

According to Voice Therapy theory, to some extent, all children experience interpersonal pain and cope by forming defenses. Once hurt, children adopt the attitude, "I can take care of myself", and learn to feed or parent themselves emotionally because this is less painful than reaching out for love food and risking more hurt. As adults, people adopt more sophisticated ways of feeding themselves, such as addictions to physical substances, addictions to routines, self-gratifying modes of sexual relating, and addictive attachments.

Addictive, self-defeating behavior is rationalized by the negative thought process, making it difficult for people to risk intimacy or to pursue their goals in life. For example, people tell themselves, "No one understands me. I won't bother talking. I'll just relax and have another drink." The negative voice is a hostile, destructive thought process that has a dual focus: it depreciates the self ("I'm an idiot. Who would love me?") and judges others ("He doesn't care about me. He's a jerk"). As people "listen" to the voice, they experience negative emotional states (e.g., anxiety, depression, inadequacy, guilt, anger) and alienation in close relationships.

Change in this approach occurs as people confront their defenses by countering the negative voice and risking moving toward people for closer connection and pursuing their goals in life. People are encouraged to become more aware of the voice and to experience it as an alien point of view about themselves by saying it with the associated feelings in the second person ("You"), as if someone else is addressing them. For example, a person might say, "No one understands (you). Don't (you) bother talking. (You) Just relax and have another drink". Having separated out the voice, people are encouraged to counter it from their healthy point of view about themselves, in the first person singular ("I"). For example, "I know that my friends care about me, and try to understand. I'll make a call now rather than drinking." People are also encouraged to take small steps to tolerate more intimacy and to pursue personal goals by " sweating out" the voices that arise as they take action. In this way, people gradually overcome their resistance to a better life.

In summary, the theory underlying this approach is intuitively appealing to people, helping them to understand their self-defeating behavior and resistance to a better life. The methodology provides a procedure that promotes positive change. Finally, I strive to provide a warm, compassionate, therapeutic environment in which people feel safe to confront themselves and go for more in their lives.

For a detailed description of my approach to individual Counselling, including the clinical case of a man experiencing depression, see the link Counselling with Individuals in the sidebar directory.

For a detailed description of my approach to couples Counselling, including the clinical case of a couple with poor communication, see the link Counselling Therapy with Couples in the sidebar directory.