Episode 3: My counselling approach + the missing link for clients
In this episode, I share my counselling approach, and what’s usually missing for clients looking for meaning & purpose in their life.
Transcript
Welcome to Fulfilled Within Podcast. In this third episode, I'm gonna talk about my counselling approach.
The foundation of my counselling approach is person-centred therapy. So as the name suggests — person-centred or client-centred — the centre of the therapy is the client. So in person-centred therapy, we put the client as the expert of their own lives, not the therapist. So the therapist's job is not to give advice, tell the client what to do, or be the expert. But the therapist's role is to let the client lead the process through their internal wisdom, and the therapist will reflect back to the client on what the client is processing within the therapeutic space.
But that's just the foundation. On top of that, I use a somatic approach, which means I incorporate the body while I work within therapy. I don't just work with changing thoughts or beliefs, or only with the feelings, but I incorporate the bodily sensations, as well as the wisdom of the unconscious. So that includes images, metaphors, symbols, or synchronicities, dreams, and similar. So my approach is very much similar to depth psychology, I would say.
And then, other than that, I also work with the present moment. So what that means is, if I sense something emerging in the present moment, then I might offer that to my clients. So for example, if I have an intuition about what might be happening, then I might offer it to the client. And since they are the expert, they can either take it if it resonates or leave it if it doesn't, and I don't try to push the clients to agree with me, or take my suggestion, or anything like that.
So with that, I want to address the topic about my clients. So usually, because of my niche around meaning and purpose, clients come to me when they are at a threshold. For example, high school students at the threshold of what to do next, or uni students at the threshold of what to pursue instead that would be more aligned for them, or adults at the threshold of a more meaningful career and life.
And what I’ve found is that these clients are usually highly performing, logical, analytical, step by step, and that's how they live their life. That's how they have achieved the success they have achieved thus far. But the similarities for these clients are that they have reached a certain point where their logical side can't bring them any further. And so, usually, that's when they found me.
And with my approach, my aim is to bridge that gap between the more logical realm as well as the more intuitive realm, because I found that, that's the missing link. And that bridging that gap would allow my clients to naturally be guided by a higher wisdom that allows them to reach greater heights and deeper depths in their own lives. And so, that's the reason why I bring in this somatic approach, this intuitive approach.
And yes, I know that it won't resonate with everyone, but I believe that the clients who do resonate with this approach are the ones who are most suited to work with me, who will gain the greatest benefit from working with me, whereas other clients who prefer other approach would probably benefit more from working with a different therapist. And so, that's my approach.
