How I Practice
Pluralistic Counselling - A Unique Client Experience
Pluralistic Counselling believes that different people need different things at different times.
This page contains:
- General introduction to how I practice
- A short explanation of 'tasks, methods and goals'
- An overview of how the first few sessions are structured
- Counselling length and ending
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This section is full of 'counselling jargon'. When I see you as a client, I will do my best to not use unhelpful jargon, however, I do believe, it is important to make clear what I do and how I do it, so you can make an informed decision about counselling.
I've come across a lot of confusion and misconceptions about counselling, and have heard many heartbreaking stories of clients being kept in the dark about what's going on with their own counselling, as if having counselling shrouded in mystique is part of the package. I wholeheartedly disagree. I believe in making counselling as transparent as possible. However, it is always an individual's decision whether they want to be fully informed, or learn as they go along. Therefore, nothing on this website is mandatory reading for a client, but could potentially be very helpful for your own journey, self-healing and recovery. |
A Short General Introduction:
A pluralistic counsellor, like myself, believes that everyone is unique and has multiple sides to their personality. How we are around our parents is often different from how we are around our partners, and again different from how we might be around our colleagues or friends. That's because we're complex human beings and we're not easily fitted into a neat box.
Sometimes, we can feel conflicted about how we are in our different roles and feel a bit disjointed. Maybe you're tired of being the 'good daughter/son' or maybe you wish you could say 'no' more to your boss, or perhaps you wish you could speak as honestly with your friends as you do your partner, or vice versa.
A pluralistic counsellor therefore also believes that we can't possibly just apply one way of working with all our clients.
Some counsellors only offer person-centered, whereas another only offers CBT, and again, someone else might only practice psychodynamic (that's the jargon, I was talking about, but these terms are quite important and explained in-depth here).
A pluralistic counsellor offers a 'menu', if you like, of treatment methods, or approaches, to suit the individual and unique client, and is flexible in their approach.
A pluralistic counsellor works under this structure:
A pluralistic counsellor, like myself, believes that everyone is unique and has multiple sides to their personality. How we are around our parents is often different from how we are around our partners, and again different from how we might be around our colleagues or friends. That's because we're complex human beings and we're not easily fitted into a neat box.
Sometimes, we can feel conflicted about how we are in our different roles and feel a bit disjointed. Maybe you're tired of being the 'good daughter/son' or maybe you wish you could say 'no' more to your boss, or perhaps you wish you could speak as honestly with your friends as you do your partner, or vice versa.
A pluralistic counsellor therefore also believes that we can't possibly just apply one way of working with all our clients.
Some counsellors only offer person-centered, whereas another only offers CBT, and again, someone else might only practice psychodynamic (that's the jargon, I was talking about, but these terms are quite important and explained in-depth here).
A pluralistic counsellor offers a 'menu', if you like, of treatment methods, or approaches, to suit the individual and unique client, and is flexible in their approach.
A pluralistic counsellor works under this structure:
- Tasks
- Methods
- Goals
A Little Bit About Tasks, Methods and Goals:
Tasks:
This simply refers to whatever 'problem' you want to focus on, on the day.
Setting a task at the beginning of the session (though it will be done in a very informal and casual way), helps keep the session focussed and on track.
This doesn't mean you cannot bring multiple 'tasks' or problems/issues up on any given day. It is simply a way to ensure we don't just end up talking a little bit about this, that and the other, and not make the most of your paid time in counselling.
More often than not, a client will come to counselling and say that they want to look at one problem, for example, depression, but once we start working on the problem, other problems pop up too that are perhaps linked to the depression, but deserve a whole session, or more, all to themselves, like childhood trauma, or bullying, or substance misuse, or bereavement. As I said, we're complex human beings but that's also what makes us so interesting and wonderful.
So, it's important to decide what we want to focus on during each session, so we don't overdo it and try to look at too many issues all at once.
That's the 'task' of the day.
Methods/Approaches:
Methods refer to the therapeutic methods (also called approaches) used by the counsellor. You might be familiar with terms like 'CBT', or 'Psychodynamic' or 'Person-Centered'. These are all methods, a counsellor might apply, in agreement with the client, to work with any given problem.
If the client really wants to focus on childhood problems, psychodynamic methods might be applied. However, if the client wants to work on the 'here-and-now' and be given homework and worksheets, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) might be a better fit.
See the tab 'Counselling Methods/Approach' for more information.
Despite, being a little technical, it can be very helpful for a client to familiarise themselves with these methods, to ensure that what I can offer, is aligned with what they want.
That's the 'methods' or 'approach' portion of counselling.
Goals:
Goals refer to what you hope to achieve with coming to counselling. Again, this can seem like a very big question. Sometimes, we can just feel unhappy and not quite sure why, and then, it can be difficult to set a goal.
However, setting a goal is a great way to start engaging with your feelings. For example, if you're feeling generally unhappy, the goal might be to feel happy. We will then use 'tasks' to take apart this big, and slightly vague goal of 'becoming happy' into smaller, easier-to-handle pieces, such as 'making more friends', 'making more time for myself', 'getting a new hobby', or 'look at my childhood to see where my unhappiness started'.
There will be an overall counselling goal - what you hope to achieve overall by coming to counselling
and a session goal - what do want to achieve from your session today?
Goals can be flexible and change over time. It is not a way to catch a client out, or force a client down a set path, it is simply a way to gently nudge a client to think of what they want and what they hope to achieve.
By engaging with these questions outside of counselling, you're already helping yourself to gain more clarity and empowerment in your life.
So, if a goal changes over the counselling period, that's absolutely fine, but it just helps both of us to know what we're working towards at any given time.
That's why we set goals.
This simply refers to whatever 'problem' you want to focus on, on the day.
Setting a task at the beginning of the session (though it will be done in a very informal and casual way), helps keep the session focussed and on track.
This doesn't mean you cannot bring multiple 'tasks' or problems/issues up on any given day. It is simply a way to ensure we don't just end up talking a little bit about this, that and the other, and not make the most of your paid time in counselling.
More often than not, a client will come to counselling and say that they want to look at one problem, for example, depression, but once we start working on the problem, other problems pop up too that are perhaps linked to the depression, but deserve a whole session, or more, all to themselves, like childhood trauma, or bullying, or substance misuse, or bereavement. As I said, we're complex human beings but that's also what makes us so interesting and wonderful.
So, it's important to decide what we want to focus on during each session, so we don't overdo it and try to look at too many issues all at once.
That's the 'task' of the day.
Methods/Approaches:
Methods refer to the therapeutic methods (also called approaches) used by the counsellor. You might be familiar with terms like 'CBT', or 'Psychodynamic' or 'Person-Centered'. These are all methods, a counsellor might apply, in agreement with the client, to work with any given problem.
If the client really wants to focus on childhood problems, psychodynamic methods might be applied. However, if the client wants to work on the 'here-and-now' and be given homework and worksheets, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) might be a better fit.
See the tab 'Counselling Methods/Approach' for more information.
Despite, being a little technical, it can be very helpful for a client to familiarise themselves with these methods, to ensure that what I can offer, is aligned with what they want.
That's the 'methods' or 'approach' portion of counselling.
Goals:
Goals refer to what you hope to achieve with coming to counselling. Again, this can seem like a very big question. Sometimes, we can just feel unhappy and not quite sure why, and then, it can be difficult to set a goal.
However, setting a goal is a great way to start engaging with your feelings. For example, if you're feeling generally unhappy, the goal might be to feel happy. We will then use 'tasks' to take apart this big, and slightly vague goal of 'becoming happy' into smaller, easier-to-handle pieces, such as 'making more friends', 'making more time for myself', 'getting a new hobby', or 'look at my childhood to see where my unhappiness started'.
There will be an overall counselling goal - what you hope to achieve overall by coming to counselling
and a session goal - what do want to achieve from your session today?
Goals can be flexible and change over time. It is not a way to catch a client out, or force a client down a set path, it is simply a way to gently nudge a client to think of what they want and what they hope to achieve.
By engaging with these questions outside of counselling, you're already helping yourself to gain more clarity and empowerment in your life.
So, if a goal changes over the counselling period, that's absolutely fine, but it just helps both of us to know what we're working towards at any given time.
That's why we set goals.