Holistic Counselling

What is Transpersonal Counselling?

Transpersonal counselling is a holistic form of counselling that addresses the spiritual self, incorporating the mind, body and spirit. While traditional counselling focuses on emotions, the transpersonal form of counselling deals with helping you to reach your full potential through transcendent and mystical experiences that can lead to greater enlightenment. Transpersonal counselling is often referred to as holistic counselling due to it taking into account the whole person, with a process that can involve talking, thinking and feeling.

What Psycho-Sensory Therapies do you offer?

A relatively recent development, Energy Psychology includes psycho-sensory modalities that involve touch. Two such techniques that are practiced by Áine here at Balance Point Acupuncture include Tapping and Havening.

• Tapping is based on Chinese Acupressure and involves the client tapping specific algorithms along several meridians. It is sometimes known as Thought Field Therapy (TFT). Designed to stimulate the system’s own healing system, it is a self-help tool that clients can continue to practice at home or work after their session for holistic counselling in Melbourne.

• Havening is mostly used to help release traumas or very difficult emotions associated with bad memories. The term Havening comes from the word “Haven”, which means to put in a safe place. Neuroscientists have found that the Havening Touch, which is a firm, slow movement on your face, arms and palms, can cause a change in brain chemistry and permanently remove the emotion from the distressing thought, memory or craving. Áine finds that this can greatly facilitate healing of those places that otherwise seem firmly stuck in concrete. The Havening touch can be self-administered by the client or by the therapist during a transpersonal counselling session, and this is always the client’s choice.

For a wonderfully clear explanation of the neuroscience believed to be behind the Tapping and Havening techniques, check out this brief video by Tam Johnson.

What is 'Focusing' Therapy?

Eugene Gendlin was a philosopher and psychologist, and his legacy is deep. He coined the term “felt sense” after he studied hundreds of people going through therapy to try to decipher why some people “got better” and others continued in loops for many years. He noticed that those who got better had a natural ability to listen to their bodies, to a vague, murky sensation which might give rise to a dream-like image. He studied these, writing down their process in 6 simple steps he called Focusing. Our holistic counselling in Melbourne makes use of Focusing to help you tune into your body and understand what it’s trying to tell you.

What is 'IFS'?

IFS (Internal Family Systems) combines systems theory with the notion of sub-personalities and allows us to develop a rich inner dialogue that can untangle even the most complex problems. Most importantly, IFS introduces us to the notion of Self-Leadership or the True Self – that part of us that knows what is best for us, that is our highest good and that can objectively listen to our “parts” as they express their motivations and raison d’etre.

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So, for instance, whenever you have a part that wants to do A and another part that wants to do B, which might be the exact opposite, together we can listen in depth to these parts so as to better understand how and why they are trying to protect you. Even parts such as your critic or your procrastinator, your alcoholic or your rage can be welcomed, because IFS shows that they all have your best interest at heart. Some parts just have “burdens” such as a limiting belief they picked up much earlier, which when released with holistic counselling, can allow the part to return to its original role, which is usually more constructive.