COUNSELLING
Helping You Navigate Life’s Challenges with Confidence
Ruth’s approach to counselling is informed by many modalities over the more than 30 years of working and getting specialist training in this field. She has training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, person-centred counselling, neuropsychology as well as Attachment-informed trauma therapy and Internal Family Systems (level 1). She attunes deeply to her client’s stories and ways of processing so that she can tailor her approach best to what you are needing. She works collaboratively and respectfully, believing that you are the expert on your life. Ruth offers compassionate, non-judgmental listening, creating a supportive environment where you can feel safe to explore any issues which may cause you concern.
Counselling provides the confidential opportunity to explore areas that are causing anxiety or concern for you. It is a legitimate source of support in a crisis, during a difficult time, or even in a time of transition when you are needing a safe space to reflect and process any areas of stuckness that might lead to less flourishing in your life. Counselling offers you the chance to explore feelings, thoughts, relationships or behaviours cause you concern, in order to gain insight and resources to help you live life to your fullest potential. The length of counselling depends on what you are seeking help with, the level of support you are needing at the time and the pace that you are willing to progress at.
In a series of conversations or sessions the counsellor seeks to help you discover and use your own resources to work through emotional difficulties and meet the demands of life more effectively. Your counselling sessions will give you the time and space to focus on overcoming your current hurdles on life’s journey so that your life may blossom into greater resilience and vitality.
The benefits of counselling include gaining personal insights, learning new ways of coping or solving problems, developing new life skills and changing unwanted behaviours. Counselling is an opportunity to explore your inner world in all of its dimensions so that outward transformation can happen.
What you can expect from counselling
What is IFS?
Ruth is one of the few counsellors in New Zealand to be certified in Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy (Level 1). IFS offer more than a psychotherapy approach, it is an empowering paradigm for understanding and bringing harmony to our inner system, and thereby, larger human systems (such as our families, workplaces, neighbourhoods and cultures). It has huge potential to help people heal and help the world become a more compassionate place.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a powerfully transformative, evidence-based model of psychotherapy based on the theory we are made up of “parts”, each with its own motivations, history, beliefs, needs and behaviours. None of these parts are bad or dysfunctional, but they can set up dynamics within us that cause inner distress. Once all our parts, like different family members, start working in harmony, we experience more inner balance and well-being.
The process of IFS therapy
In our sessions together, we will gently explore the different parts that show up inside you (eg. the part that gets anxious and over-thinks or over-checks). As we go through life we experience different levels of pain, and if we go through something traumatic without being able to process with someone safe at that time, then the pain ‘goes underground’ and gets exiled. It still remains in our bodies but is hard to access with our ‘thinking brain’. In IFS we start with checking in the body where these different parts (protectors or exiles) are showing up.
The goal of IFS is to become more self-led rather than reactively led by our protector parts, which were formed as adaptations when we were initially wounded. We all inherently have a SELF, which is untainted and remains undamaged all our lives, and yet is often difficult to access if we are living more from our reactive parts. The SELF is characterised by these 8 C qualities: Compassion, Connection, Clarity, Calm, Courage, Creativity, Confidence and Curiosity. Over the course of counselling you will be able to bring more of these qualities of SELF to settle and integrate the others parts within you that were holding anxiety or concern, resulting in more inner harmony.
Notes and personal information gathered will be used strictly for the purpose of enabling the counsellor to note areas of concern and trace themes that arise in the sessions. Confidentiality is a key part of the effectiveness of counselling, so the information you share in counselling will be kept confidential. This right to confidentiality continues after the end of the counselling relationship. There are, however, some exceptions to the counsellor’s duty to confidentiality, which are as follows:
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if a child is or may be at risk of abuse or neglect or in need of protection
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if a counsellor believes that you or another person is at clear risk of imminent harm
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for the purpose of complying with a legal order (i.e. a subpoena) or if the disclosure is otherwise required or authorised by law
As a counselling professional Ruth has regular supervision. For the purpose of this professional consultation, she may discuss her cases in an anonymous fashion to ensure your identity remains confidential at all times.
Confidentiality
The Challenge
Counselling can be an exciting and rewarding opportunity for you to come to know yourself and all your varied parts. It can also require courage, commitment and willingness to examine some difficult areas or times in your life and to try out new and different behaviours. The process can also evoke stronger than usual emotions, the surfacing of difficult memories, changes in self-awareness as well as different ways of relating to others. During these times, Ruth will be right alongside you helping you manage and process the emotions that may arise, as well as giving you resources to empower you.
Please be advised that Ruth does not offer crisis interventions or urgent after-hours services for acute episodes of mental distress. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis and need urgent support, please contact free phone or text 1737 (24 /7) or Lifeline New Zealand. Freephone 0800 543 354.
Your rights
In counselling it is your right at any time to:
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have a review of your progress,
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be provided with a referral to another counsellor or health professional if you feel our counselling work is not beneficial for you,
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end the counselling relationship,
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have access to a copy of the information in your confidential counselling records, subject to legal requirements. This right continues even after the ending of the counselling relationship (files are stores securely for us to seven years then destroyed).
Code of Ethics
Ruth adheres strictly to the NZAC code of ethics (read it here Code of Ethics - NZAC) to ensure that her practice is safe, ethical and professionally effective and has a clear Complaints Process - NZAC should the need arise.