Counselling in Italian
My counselling services are available in Italian. Click here for more info
Extra Information
- BACP - British Association of Psychotherapy and Counselling
http://www.bacp.co.uk/ Integrative Psychotherapy - what is it?
The Integrative approach combines the main theories and methods of psychotherapy and counselling, (encompassing humanistic and psychodynamic, as well as cognitive-behavioural models). Its rationale lies in the recognition that there is not one single therapeutic approach that is universally more effective than others.
Integrative practitioners use a variety of frameworks and skills to “meet” the client with in his/her own frame of reference. This avoids the risk of making the client conform (whether subtly or explicitly) to a particular form of treatment that’s offered. Reason, feelings, actions, unconscious and spirituality, past and present are all considered as important aspects of the human experience rather than any one mode becoming the focus.
Existential orientation – what is it?
An existential approach is an approach that explores the human condition and tries to capture and question an individual's experience of it. It aims at clarifying and understanding personal worldviews, values and beliefs and it makes explicit what was previously implicit and unsaid. Its practice is primarily philosophical and seeks to enable a person to live more deliberately, more authentically and more purposefully, whilst accepting the limitations and contradictions of human existence. It is essentially about investigating human existence through the particular preoccupations of one individual and this has to be done without preconceptions or set ways of proceeding.
Doubt and wonder enable us to rediscover the miracle of being. Once upon a time the meaning of life was given by religion or by social rule. These days meaning is often looked at in a far more sceptical manner (Tantam, 2000). It is therefore not surprising that people can find themselves in what has been called a vacuum of meaning (Frankl 1946,1955). The experience of meaninglessness becomes a major problem in many people's lives and it may lead to a number of concrete difficulties, which may look like personality problems or other forms of pathology. We can only engage in discussions about meaning if we have been willing to question our own lives and can recognize that anxieties and doubts about meaning do not have to be equated with personal pathology or mental illness (Szasz 1961, 1965, 1992).
Existentialists recognized that meaning making is one of the defining characteristics of human consciousness. Frankl (1946) spoke of three sources of meaning. Firstly through taking from the world what is there, learning to savour and appreciate what is already given to us, as in aesthetic enjoyment of nature or the pleasures of the senses. Secondly to give to the world and add new enjoyments to it through acts of our own creativity and by giving to others in this way as well. Thirdly by suffering, which is to endure the harsh conditions we may be exposed to.
-
From 'Therapy Today', M. Cooper: ‘The Facts are Friendly’ – September 2008, Vol.19 no.7
“Does therapy work? Fortunately there is a very simple answer to this question: yes. Studies which look at clients’ behaviours, feelings or psychological functioning before and after therapy nearly always find that , on average, they are better off by the end of it.... What we also know from the research evidence is that: - improvements in mental health tend to be maintained one or two years after therapy has ended;...talking therapies are generally as effective as pharmacological treatments for psychological distress, and seem to have lower relapse and drop-out rates.”