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Therapy

& Counselling

 

 

"The only person holding you back is you!" - Jack Holt, Stelram Engineering Ltd


DEPRESSED? ~ LOW SELF-ESTEEM? ~ RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS?

Are YOU happy with what You believe about Yourself?

Can Personal Therapy help You to lead a more fulfilling life?

                                                                                                          Negative Thoughts!!

Do you sometimes find yourself thinking thoughts such as.…


It's amazing how many sophisticated and intelligent people suffer from such unhealthy, unwholesome and unhelpful thoughts.


These are what in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) we call 'limiting beliefs' and in Cognitive Psychology 'maladaptive schemas'. They lower our self-esteem and reduce our self-efficacy (Albert Bandura's term for our belief in our ability to acquire and use learning and resources for our benefit). Limiting beliefs stop us doing what we want to do and having fulfilling lives. They blight our personal relationships and hinder our career development.

 

Such beliefs usually have deep roots in childhood or traumatic experiences. Such beliefs are acquired or developed to serve what our Unconscious Mind perceives as a useful purpose at that point in time. Even debilitating beliefs - such as "I am unworthy" - will have served an apparently-useful purpose at some point – eg: suppressing self-expression to escape the wrath of a bullying parent.

 

Deep and powerful limiting beliefs may even hinder the brain's bio-chemical development of what Spiral Dynamics calls vMEMES (neurologically-based coping mechanisms) which enable us to deal with life's many varied challenges.

 

Conversely, our operating vMEMES will influence the way we attribute cause and effect to events and then meta-state (make meaning) about them - and that can produce limiting beliefs, anxiety and even Depression. (See 'Can vMEMES cause Clinical Depression' in the Articles pages for more about this.)

So all too easily we end up in a vicious (and depressing!) spiral of unhealthy beliefs hindering our abililty to cope with life and skewing the way we make sense of things - all of which lead us to formulate even more unhealthy beliefs about ourselves and the world around us.

                                                                                                  So it's a massive relief…
...to know that we don't always have to be victims of our own limiting beliefs—and we can change!

 

Firstly, any belief statement can be meta-modelled to test its rationality and to find the values and root beliefs which underpin it. (I once destroyed a sales manager's belief that he couldn't speak in public simply by asking him what his evidence was for that belief!)

 

However, we all know that often deep emotions can't be swayed by logic and rationale— no matter how seemingly watertight the logic is. Worse still, some limiting beliefs are partly-rooted in our innate temperament. (No wonder so-called 'conventional counselling is often only partially effective!)

 

Fortunately leading psychotherapists and NLP strategists such as L Michael Hall and Penny Parks are developing new ways of working with the Unconscious Mind. While the pioneering work in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) of the likes of Judith Beck and Rob Willson has addressed means of improving the way an individual's biology affects their mental processes.

 

Through working with sub-modalities and implanting new suppositions, using exercises like the Trauma Cure, the Mistaken Belief Visualisation and various Timelining, Reframing and Behavioural activities, it is possible to at worst control, hopefully neutralise and sometimes even delete inappropriate beliefs. These can then be superceded with new positive and enabling beliefs.

 

While, of course, we can't alter the inescapable facts of unfortunate and/or traumatic events in our past - what happened happened! - it is possible to change the way we feel about them and the meaning we attribute to them. Equally, science has yet to find a way of totally altering someone's natural-born temperament; but it is possible to teach people how to assume and live out far-more satisfying modes of behaviour.

 

If you think deep-rooted beliefs can't be changed...well, consider how strongly young children believe in Santa Claus. Yet very few still believe by the time they are teenagers. First we teach them to believe. Then we teach them not to believe.

 

Of course, changing beliefs is not always easy. Remember how many children protest and cry when they are first told Santa is just a story?!?

 

People freed from debilitating limiting beliefs often experience quite remarkable and very rapid personal development. Quite often this improves areas of their lives they didn't think were affected by what they thought was the problem!

 

As NLP co-developer Richard Bandler once said, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood!"

 

                                                                                            What does Treatment involve?
My Therapy & Counselling techniques - which draw primarily on NLP but also use CBT extensively, based on the complementary psychological maps of Spiral Dynamics, Dimensions of Personality and Neurological Levels - often provide dramatic results and some people do find the issue can be dealt with in a single one-hour session.

 

However, the more complex the problems the more likely multiple sessions will be required. The majority of clients require 3-6 sessions over 2-3 months. Occasionally treatment may require more sessions. It is unusual for treatment programmes to require more than 10 sessions.

Compared to conventional counselling, which can last years, my techniques are very effective.

 

The first 30 minutes or so of your initial consultation will be diagnostic, without obligation to proceed. From the diagnostic, I will advise what I believe the problem to be, what treatment is appropriate and an estimate of how many sessions I believe will be necessary. Sessions are normally charged at £30 + VAT (£35.25) per hour. (Payment is at the end of each session unless otherwise agreed.)

 

In the unlikely event that I can't help you or you choose not to proceed, there will be no charge for the diagnostic.

 

Some clients will benefit from post-treatment support. As an option, I offer upto 5 hours per month support by telephone and e-mail for a flat fee of £50 + VAT (£58.75). If the client still feels support is necessary after 6 months, I will suggest another appointment to re-examine the issues.

 

Below you can access six examples of therapy & counselling work. They have been carried out either as part of a management development coaching programme or as private consultations. The names of the participants have been changed to protect confidentiality and certain potential 'giveaway' peripheral information has been altered also. The backgrounds of the participants and the effects of the therapies are related as the clients described them to me. The analytical tools I used and the therapeutic techniques described are exactly as I used them.

 

‘James’ & ‘Alan’

 

‘Susan’

 

‘William’

 

‘Jasmine’

‘Shirley’

‘Jay’

'James' & 'Alan'.
'Susan'.
'Jasmine'.
'William'.
'Shirley'.
'Jay'.

"Remember: it's normal to have problems. It's abnormal to let your problems become pathological."

- Dr Ichak Adizes

 

                                                                                                 Why suffer? Get in contact now!