Helping a client navigate an identity crisis is about more than finding a label – it’s about crafting a life that feels genuine from the inside out. Not one that simply mimics what everyone else is doing. Here are three straightforward strategies to help your client discover who they truly are.
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If you are a therapist or coach of any persuasion; counsellor, psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, life coach, bodyworker, in fact anyone who works in the helping professions, you will glean valuable, actionable ideas, tips and techniques from Clear Thinking, my free therapy techniques newsletter.
In it you'll find a wide range of topics including solution focused therapy approaches, cognitive-behavioural therapy techniques, ideas from DBT, hypnotherapy, counselling and even the occasional philosophical piece. I've been treating people with psychotherapy for more than 30 years and I've drawn what I find useful from many fields. I hope you find it helps you in your practice too, whatever flavour of helper you are.
Why We All Need to Do Our Own Thinking
We like to think of ourselves as ‘individuals’, but a surprising amount of what we do and think is really prompted by group-action and groupthink. And yet it’s a wonderful development for a human being to reconnect with something that came intuitively as a young child: the capacity to see directly. To become a truth […]
How to Help the Chronically Self-Pitying Client
We should always be compassionate, kind, decent, and caring to people who are suffering. But with some clients, the kindest and most compassionate approach we can take is to help them transcend their self-pity. So what are some of the ways we can do this?
The World Can Float by Itself
How do your clients perceive their role in their relationships? If they feel overly responsible, that very attitude could be creating much of their distress. Here are three strategies to help clients who feel overly responsible for most everyone else.
Working with the Angry Child: A Short Case Study
Chronic anger issues can lead adults to ruin their relationships, jobs prospects, and health. But many angry adults were also angry children. Regardless of why a child exhibits extreme anger, we need to help them learn to tame the anger early so it doesn’t become a lifelong, problematic pattern.
How to Help Your Stigmatized Mental Health Clients
Some people see mental illness less as a situation someone is ‘going through’ and more as some intractable difference from ‘normal’ people. When someone is seen as different, and in that difference, wrong, they are stigmatized. So how might we help the stigmatized client?
3 Easy-to-Use CBT Techniques for Jealousy
While CBT may be an incomplete approach in some ways, it does offer effective techniques for helping clients manage and overcome jealousy, enabling them to develop healthier emotional responses and stronger relationships. Here are three approaches I find useful.
Why Treating Smokers is an Emergency
Sometimes we sleepwalk into oblivion. We forget that the clock is ticking and we don’t have infinite leeway to play with our fate. We, as smoking cessation practitioners, need to feel the urgency when working with smokers – and we need to communicate that urgent need to escape to our clients.
Research Roundup 21
It’s Research Roundup time again! In these occasional pieces I take five findings from psychological science and give my ideas as to what they might actually mean. How they might fit into the puzzle of the human condition. So what have I got in store for you this time?
How to Help Your Hair Pulling Clients
Trichotillomania is a private but widespread condition, affecting up to 1 in 50 people at some point in their lives. So how can you help the hair-pulling client? Here are five scalp-easing ideas you might find useful when treating this particular type of self-harm.
