Types of Therapy

Systemic therapy is a type of counselling that believes that every person - male or female, adult or child - belongs to a social system. That system might be as large as our distinct New Zealand culture, or as small as your family and it's rules. As a counsellor using systemic therapy, I would help you to search through the rules of your life and try to determine whether those rules are fair, or whether they threaten your well-being and health.

I also use cognitive behavioural therapy sometimes when I am trying to find out how a person thinks and feels about himself. Most people don't come to see me when things are going great. Usually they come because there has been a buildup of (often negative) events, and things are not so well. This type of counselling helps me to identify the association between events and negative thoughts and feelings you may have of yourself. Ultimately we will examine the assumptions and evaluations you may be making, to determine better whether they help or hinder your well-being.

We may use narrative therapy together to gather information about a problem that may be on the horizon or affecting you right now. We'll look at the causes of the problem, and the effect it is having on you, and search closely to find out what 'the problem' is saying and thinking. Lifes problems are seldom our friend, they usually have the subtle goal of bringing harm into your life. Together we can expose it and find ways to lessen the power it may have over you.

In whatever way we work together, I promise to stay with you - to listen to you, to care for you, to support you, and to accept you. You can get through this. You can heal. Give me a call today.