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Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

09 Oct

Workplace Counselling Dublin

Workplace counselling Dublin

Work needs to be ‘win-win’. If employees feel supported and well enough, employers get more from their workforce in a sustainable way and reach company goals.

The opposite also applies. Employee absenteeism, high staff turnover, low morale and motivation, conflict, bullying, sexual harassment and mis-managed organisational change can be silent killers in your company. They corrode productivity, push up business costs – especially in terms of lost time – and undermine profitability and company reputation.

Research in Irish Companies

Research among Irish employers backs this up. 90% of Irish employers say that employee health and wellbeing have a direct effect on productivity. (Aviva Workplace Health Index, AWHI, 2013)

And 80% of Irish employers feel that workplace health initiatives have many benefits such as attracting and retaining talent, and increasing loyalty. (AWHI, 2013)

Research among Irish employees matches the above. 80% of Irish employees say they would be more loyal to an employer if they looked after their health. (AWHI, 2013)

And these employees see counselling/psychotherapy as the key provision for health maintenance. 76% of Dublin workers feel there is a need for counselling in the workplace. (Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, IACP, survey 2013)

Research on the Irish workplace

The top four health problems experienced in the Irish workplace today are stress and anxiety (55%), fatigue (52%), back and neck pain (32%) and colds (32%). (AWHI, 2013)

So stress and anxiety is the top problem in the Irish workplace. And, for me, stress and anxiety cause the other three problems. It depletes the immune system leading to fatigue and colds and the body tenses to hold itself together but this leads to pain.

Other research verifies this. 41 per cent of people are currently stressed or very stressed by their jobs – making work more stressful than money worries, marriage, relationships or health issues. (Mind, 2011)

Workplace Counselling Dublin

Stress and anxiety are silent killers in any company. On the one hand, employers are not the parent of their employees and solely responsible for their health but, on the other hand, if the problem is ignored, it can be undermining your business today.

Psychotherapy/counselling deals with the roots of stress and anxiety rather than just the symptoms. Providing training days on stress management or a yoga class for your workplace is like a wave on an ocean, it comes and goes but nothing really changes. Psychotherapy/counseling is about looking at the currents that influence the whole ocean, so the whole company moves forward.

Either on site or externally, I can provide cost effective counselling to both staff and management in the Dublin area.

For a wider description of the psychological services that I can offer your workplace, please see https://thomaslarkin.ie/counselling-for-business/

Or call me today to see how counselling/psychotherapy can work for your business.

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

30 Aug

Clinical Supervision: How It Works

visiblesuccess

Who Needs Clinical Supervision?

Clinical supervision is for accredited counsellors and psychotherapists, pre-accredited therapists and students undergoing training courses in professional counselling and psychotherapy.

Why?

The primary goal of clinical supervision is to enhance the effectiveness of psychotherapy/counselling through the growth of the therapist and the development of their skills.

Clinical supervision also protects against burnout and stress. Burnout comes from being overloaded and the onset of ‘compassion fatigue’. So clinical supervision is a restorative process to replenish emotional energy through debriefing and emotional containment. It is a space to discuss difficulties, both the supervisees’ and their clients, without fear of disapproval or judgement.

Supervisee’s job…

Like with a client, ground rules are established and lines of responsibility clarified regarding how a supervisee prepares for a session; ensure client needs are addressed and to recognise when personal issues are intruding on the work.

Supervisor’s job…

The supervisor’s job is to create a space that will enable the supervisee to find their own style of being a therapist. The space is the heart of the process that helps the supervisee gain insight and find their own solutions and explore the unknown. A space to explore fantasies, hunches and feelings. This allows the supervisee step back from their work and see the themes. It also allows them to move between experiencing and reflecting.

Most importantly, supervisor and supervisee look at the ‘parallel process’: where the relationship dynamics between client and therapist appear in the supervision room. The supervisee literally, but unconsciously, acts like the client to show the supervisor what is happening in the relationship. The origin of this is from our own childhood and mimicry at play. It is the supervisee’s out of character behaviour that really shows who the client is.

This process externalises the client for the supervisee and he/she can look at the client with fresh eyes and a sense of where the therapeutic relationship needs to go.

Review

All parts of this clinical supervision process are regularly reviewed so a clear development is maintained. Mutual feedback is encouraged as well as a look at strengths and weaknesses on all sides, including the supervisor.

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

21 May

Mindfulness and Psychotherapy – A Therapist’s Perspective

Zenboy

When mental health Minister Kathleen Lynch got stuck in a lift with the Minister for Health James Reilly, she assured the media she was not stressed during it as she was practicing her mindfulness. Was she in a state of profound calm or just trying to deny a mounting panic or discomfort?

And this is how mindfulness can be. It can be used and mis-used. Today it is a real buzz word and seen as the new answer to all ills. Vietnamese Zen monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, warns against this kind of mis-use in his writings on ‘the better way to catch a snake’. If we grab a snake by the tail or the body, it will bite, but if we use a fork at its head it is safer. Similarly if we approach mindfulness the wrong way we can get bitten.

What is Mindfulness

The original practice of mindfulness is based on the Buddha’s teaching in the ‘Sattipathana Sutta’, or ‘The Great Discourse on the Establishment of Mindfulness’. In a nutshell, it is a balanced and relaxed observation of the processes of our body, our sensations in our body, our feelings and thoughts.

The clever thing about mindfulness is stepping back from ourselves and seeing the process of ourselves unfold. Like watching a river flowing or clouds drifting across the sky you see your body just as it is, seeing our thoughts and feelings just as thoughts and feelings…’this is a thought, this is a feeling’…seeing them arising, staying for a while and then subsiding. Seeing their changing nature we don’t get caught in them and can let them go.

However, this includes seeing and staying with the unpleasant feelings, thoughts and sensations which is a little more difficult. But watching them in the same way as the pleasant aspects of ourselves is also mindfulness. An old teacher realised this when he said: ‘there is no reason to believe that when we discover the truth it will turn out to be interesting.’

So Kathleen Lynch was practicing mindfulness if she was able to observe her unpleasant feelings and thoughts as they are; or was she, like most of us would do, wrestle with the thoughts and feelings trying to push them away or getting caught up in them and following the drama.

Mindfulness: Benefits and limits

The benefit of mindfulness is this stepping back from ourselves and attending to ourselves. In a way we are giving ourselves the space to see how we are and take care of that which is a good thing. It also allows us to calm down, this soothes us. We can get in touch with a peacefulness in us that is a real resource. This gives us perspective and space.

Mindfulness also has it limits. As a psychotherapist, I have seen clients who rely excessively on mindfulness. It can contribute to a lack of involvement in the world and feed an isolation in their lives that has its roots in their own past isolation. Psychotherapist Arnie Mindell describes it: ‘The secret desire for nirvana (enlightenment) is a shortcut to death itself as it cuts off individuation from a failure to interact with life’.

It can also be used to run away from our feelings. If we learned that our sexuality or our anger is ‘bad’ we can turn to such spiritual discipline to expunge these aspects of ourselves. This never works and the battle with ourselves can keep us very stuck in our lives.

Mindfulness and Psychotherapy

But most importantly, mindfulness does not see the huge value in relationship and relationality – the value and profound contribution a second person can make to this practice of self observation. Our planet has two poles, north and south; batteries need two points to work. Similarly, we work best in twos. And this is why counselling and psychotherapy works best when there is two people. The importance of expressive speech and a listening, reflecting other is a hugely important and healing part of counselling that is not in mindfulness practice alone.

Also, ironically, in my experience, the use of mindfulness in a psychotherapy session can take a client to a real depth in themselves that they do not experience from their own individual mindfulness practice. For me, mindfulness in the therapeutic relationship has a real power that is life changing.

In summary, in the question of whether to use mindfulness or psychotherapy, it might be both.

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

20 May

Anxiety and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

baby

Anxiety affects the way we think, feel and behave. It can also have a very physical impact on our body. Cognitive (Thinking) Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a type of counselling that helps us monitor these aspects of ourselves.

Anxiety as normal

It is important to understand that anxiety is a normal response to any threat to our person. Being slightly nervous can help us to perform better or can help us to deal with danger. The body reacts to a threat by producing adrenaline, a hormone which prepares us for ‘fight or flight’. You feel your heart beating faster and your breathing becoming faster. These symptoms are the body’s way of preparing us to run or fight.

Anxiety as a problem

Although it is normal to feel anxious when threatened or under pressure, some people feel anxious quite a lot of the time when they are not really under threat. Anxiety can become a problem when it is severe and prolonged and when it interferes with what we want to do in our daily lives.

In anxiety, a vicious cycle is maintained between thinking and feeling (including bodily responses) and behaviour. You may not even be aware of the thoughts themselves as you are so used to them. These thoughts are called ‘negative, automatic thoughts’.

Anxiety and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

The aim of CBT is to identify these ‘negative automatic thoughts’ so you can challenge them. We need to become good at hi jacking these thoughts before they take hold of you and send you spiraling into anxiety. Although the feelings anxiety produces are unpleasant, they are not dangerous.

It is common for people who suffer from anxiety to avoid situations that make them feel anxious. This can become very problematic as the more you avoid something, the more difficult it will seem to overcome, which in turn will make you more anxious. It is necessary therefore, to keep trying to do things even if they make you feel anxious so that you can prove to yourself that nothing disastrous will happen. CBT helps facilitate this work.

Taking control of anxiety starts with recognizing what’s going on in your mind and body and taking positive steps to manage this. In this way anxiety can be seen as a normal response to life changing events but one that does not take over your life.

This article is a guest blog by Fergal Brady, a psycho-analytical psychotherapist, based in Dundalk, and available at www.counsellingconnections.ie

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

Dublin Counsellor Blog

phone: 0857283697 | email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | Availability, Dublin 2

23 Oct

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), The Quick Fix?

Bekind

 

When a crisis hits us in our lives we naturally want it to end as soon as possible. We may look into psychotherapy and counselling and see that it takes a bit of time. Then we see that cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) takes 6 – 8 sessions and it’s an easy choice. Or we have done some psychotherapy but want to be fixed quicker so CBT is an easy choice.

We can come to CBT wanting a one-line ‘magic bullet’ phrase or piece of advice that will undo all our problems. We don’t want the answers to have to do with our behaviour, our body or our feelings, just be cognitive. Those areas are off limits. Our back story can also be off limits ie how we got into this situation. The more that is out of bounds and off limits, the more any solution will be purely partial and won’t last very long. What we are DOING is avoiding. Trying to fix only one aspect of ourselves is like putting a small boat on a big ocean, when the ocean rears up the boat gets smashed and the ocean reasserts itself. In other words, the size and power of the mind and its patterns reasserts itself.

Emotionally we can therefore come to CBT with impatience and anger, born out of desperation, but showing an underlying sense of panic and uncertainty. What we are DOING is treating ourselves and others harshly and impatiently from the panic we feel at the uncertainty we are experiencing.

Vicious Cycle

From this we move into relationships and a therapeutic relationship with a sense of ‘give me the answer, you fix me now’. What we are DOING is assuming someone else has YOUR answer. What we are telling ourselves is ‘I can’t help myself’. What we are also telling a therapist is ‘I’m looking for certainty, I can’t bear the uncertainty I’m feeling and the anxiety it brings’.

We are stuck in the vicious cycle of how we treat ourselves. CBT describes the vicious cycle as ‘What we DO follows from and serves to confirm what we believe’.

Working with ‘not knowing’

In CBT we have to become aware of what we DO first, become aware of our patterns. As we calm down we get in touch with the uncertainty and anxiety and see that we don’t know, YET. Knowing that you don’t know is the beginning of knowing and is the start of the solution. We start to give ourselves the time and space we need to look at what’s happening in us and to take a more full view rather than racing to fix one thing out of panic. As the panic itself subsides we see the same one problem differently already. We then have space to trace the roots of this panic and find the underlying assumptions and the core beliefs they sit on. Albert Ellis, one of the founding father of CBT, said: ‘We are not disturbed simply by our experiences, rather we bring our ability to disturb ourselves to our experiences.’

CBT Vs Psychotherapy

CBT is not something separate from psychotherapy. CBT’s founding principals are based on the same therapeutic principals. There is just a slightly different emphasis – the importance of DOING something to change it, behaving in new ways. When we change what we do, when we stop avoiding and stop panicing and stop treating ourselves with aggression and impatience, and see that we CAN help ourselves and what that might involve, we can begin to DO things differently.

In summary, we become aware of what we do first, then consider ‘what can I DO’ that would represent an important symbolic change in that behaviour. When we act differently we get different experiences coming back to us and our life changes.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), the quick fix?

How long that takes depends on what is happening with us. Six to eight sessions may indeed be enough to get through the crisis. It may require more and it may not. It’s like drinking water, if you don’t drink enough you remain thirsty, if you drink too much, you can continue drinking but there is no point. There is a point between these two extremes that is the right ‘enough’ point for YOU. Only you can judge that point from your experience of CBT.

email: info@thomaslarkin.ie | tel: 085 7283697 | © Thomas Larkin 2014
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