WHAT IS HUMANISTIC COUNSELLING?
The Humanistic approach is positive and forward looking, helping an individual to recognise and develop their personal values, strengths and creativity in order to feel more satisfied and fulfilled. It is based on the principle that everyone has their own unique way of looking at the world and that their view can impact their personal choices.
Exploring one’s assumptions and perspectives can help to increase awareness as to what stumbling blocks and old thought patterns might have left a person feeling unsettled or dissatisfied. This new insight and awareness opens a window, allowing the person to start to see new ways of doing things that are more helpful and enabling, and learn from, rather than judge their own experiences.
The approach is integrative and comprises the following three modalities:
Person Centered
This is a warm and relational counselling approach. The client chooses what they would like to discuss. Instead of the counsellor directing the course of therapy, the client is offered support and guidance so that they can uncover their own inner resources and find solutions within themselves.
Transactional Analysis
Transactional analysis explores how a person’s personality has been shaped by their experiences, especially those from their childhood. This helps shed light and understanding upon problematic feelings and repetitive patterns, which can then be changed to achieve better outcomes.
It is also a useful model through which personal interactions can be better understood. By being provided with a set of tools, it can make a significant difference to how effectively a person can communicate internally with themselves, and with other people in their lives – at work, socially and within personal and family relationships.
Gestalt
The Gestalt approach helps a person to focus on the here and now rather than on the past. It gives attention to how one places meaning and makes sense of one’s own world and experiences. It is all too easy to live on autopilot but by slowing down and taking notice of what is happening in one’s immediate environment, it encourages intentional living with focus and purpose.
©2021 Sara Luck
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