Therapies

PSYCHODYNAMIC THERAPY

Psychodynamic Therapy has been used to help people understand how their past impacts upon their present. A trained psychologist may help you become more aware of mental and behavioural patterns that had remained unconscious, at least to a degree, prior to treatment. Thus you may become able to build a mature capacity to cope with issues …

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) proposes to change unhelpful or negative aspects of people’s thoughts, feelings and resulting behaviour. The emotion-based thoughts are often expressions of a person’s self-doubt and fear or negative expectations about people he or she is interacting with. The goal of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is also to help a person recognise that …

HYPNOSIS OR HYPNOTHERAPY

Hypnosis involves a particular way of enhancing focused attention, which in turn helps in bypassing the logic of the conscious mind and also helps in engaging with the unconscious. The following points will provide a summary of what is involved in the experience: There is a discussion about hypnosis with the therapist prior to the actual …

MINDFULNESS

There have always been overlaps between Buddhism and Western psychology. However, in the last few decades, an adaptation of one of the basic Buddhist practices – mindfulness – has become part of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), thus of mainstream psychology. The practice of mindfulness in psychotherapy may be described as follows: Develop a particular way of …

ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY (ACT)

ACT is one of the mindfulness-based psychological approaches which has been developed in recent decades (specifically in 1982 by Stephen Hayes). The goal is to help people accept  – instead of fighting with or avoiding – what unfolds in their life, and independently of possible fears or obstacles, to work towards what is of greatest …

The Guest House by Rumi

The most frequently recited poem in mindfulness retreats The Guest House This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.  A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.  Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty …