Five steps in counselling session

In the counselling room, there are two people, sometimes it can be more than two people, which we call group counselling session. The clients bring in their stories to speak to the psychotherapists.  The psychotherapists guide the clients through five steps to talk over their issues and while psychotherapists use various micro counselling skills to stimulate the clients to open up their darkness.

• Open the session.

Open the session is to facilitate the session. To open the door, you need a key to do that, so to open the darkness of someone’s life, it needs someone trained to ignite the session to set the pace.

The highly effective session is achieved through the establishment of building rapport. The psychotherapists welcome the clients and help the clients become custom to the new environment. In this way, it helps the clients feel welcomed, thus settles in that space.  By doing so the psychotherapists create a safe, comfortable and secure environment so that the clients freely express themselves.

The psychotherapists must assure the client's confidentiality of the information the clients are about to share as it’s privileged information.

• Hearing the story.

The clients are asked to speak the reason for being there while the counsellors are attentively hearing their stories.  The counsellors attend, question and reflect on their stories thus gathers all the information presented to draw out their stories, worries, troubles which will help them set their platform for change.  

The counsellors apply various counselling micro-skills to help clients profoundly express themselves to empty themselves.  When all has been released to open space, the clients feel relief about it as someone has heard their stories.

• Prioritizing primary concerns.

After the information is gathered, the psychotherapists and the clients collaboratively assess and agree on the main issues from the client’s stories.

When the main issues are identified and established, now the psychotherapists and the clients categorize them into the order of importance so that both are focused and work towards the changes.

• Working on change.

The psychotherapists and clients collaboratively work on ways to bring about changes to the main issues that have emerged from the stories.

Here, psychotherapists and clients develop action plans which the clients can work on to bring about change in his or her life. The small steps they take contributes to a bigger scale of change.

The clients must work on the plans that have been drawn out so that they can experience the changes in their life.

• Close the session.

Before allowing the clients to re-enter the outside world, the clients may feel vulnerable after sharing their dark side, so to help them feel secure, the psychotherapist ties together the overall session and provide support information for the next step.

Health benefits of counselling services.

Counselling is a treatment approach for various psychological conditions such as anxiety, depression or substance misuse. Not many people seek counselling services, possibly due to the stigma and discrimination associated with counselling seeking behaviour.

 

The counselling services remains a powerful and unique way of supporting those who are encountering challenges in their lives. There are many benefits for seeking counselling services; some of which are listed below.

Clients can benefit from special attentive listening. 

In the counselling setting, there is someone specifically trained to respond to clients with a technique known as attentive listening. 

The clients feel important as someone has paid attention to them, and feel free to share their issues with the counsellor. 

As a result, the client benefits from attentive listening as someone had heard their stories, and can identify how those stories influence their overall life. 

From the opening of clients’ stories, counsellors will listen attentively and empathetically.

The clients will feel valued because their stories are respected, which can increase their self-confidence. This, in turn, allows a client to develop goals to overcome their problems. The counsellor's role is to assist the client to prioritize their issues and identify goals to work towards. 

In this way, the clients feel the luxury of the conducive counselling environment where they will feel comforted, as their stories received the professional’s attention. 

Unloading your emotions through talking:

If you feel that you are weighed down from an emotional perspective, this will be something you will be relieved to find out that your counsellor will understand. Counsellors have a deep understanding of people being weighed down by their feelings and emotions. This creates a stimulating conducive environment to unpack your mental worries. Unloading your mental weights can alleviate anxiety, and you will feel better through talking, and you will likely improve your overall quality of life. Carrying your emotional burden alone, whether it is a short or for a long time, is simply mental fatigue. 

Counsellors are trained to listen to your stories and help you explore them, thus allowing clients to express them deeply. This, in turn, allows a client to unload your fatigue and free their mind.

Develop & work on your goals:

Through counselling sessions, a counsellor can assist a client to develop goals and work through them.  As a result, the client can see the purpose and meaning of seeking counselling. It is not just about expressing your feelings and talking them over but also seeking a purpose to assist a client to overcome your problems. 

The counsellor supports the client with the development of their goals and implementation of behaviours and strategies that support goal attainment. These corrective actions help the client find happiness in their lives.

Information security protocol:

Clients can feel secure about the information they share with counsellors. The counsellors are highly trained people and well-placed to protect very sensitive information clients share. It is privileged information; hence, counsellors value the candidness and sensitivity of any information shared.  Before beginning a counselling session, the counsellor will outline the nature of confidentiality so that the client can be certain about the security of the information.

Improve the quality of overall physical well-being:

A counselling session has a significant focus on easing the client's distress regarding a specific psychological issue. This has an impact, namely - it improves overall physical well-being. 

Physical well-being, physiology and psychological health are all interrelated; each influences each other.  Hence, by attending counselling sessions, clients can benefit from improved energy levels, feel confident about themselves, improve appetite, sleep well, and improved social life.

Knowing your early mental health signs.

If you are feeling stressed or worried, and if those concerns are weighing your life,  it is important to pay attention with care.

The best way to do that is to know early signs of mental health conditions. The following are early mental health signs;

1. Feeling worried or anxious.

2. Feeling depressed or unhappy.

3. Emotional outburst.

4. Sleep problems.

5. Weight or appetite changes.

6. Quite or withdrawn. 

7. Substance abuse.

8. Feeling guilty or worthless.

9. Changes in behaviour or feeling. 

10. Headaches.

11. Feeling drained, hopeless, and empty.

If you experience the above mental health signs, you must speak to your psychotherapists/counsellors so that you are supported to redefine your future roadmap. 

Even the issues can be small but if it puts a weight on your mind, you better address them with professionals, otherwise, it will become too big to carry through.

Nine (9) earlyf mental health signs.

Understanding early mental health signs can save lives and property, time and money. Business leaders need to rise above the mental health leadership bar to provide a high level of leadership. If the business leader hasn’t managed the worker's mental health needs at workplaces, they are yet to master the people managing skills.

The workers also need to play a proactive role to help themselves, then just waiting for the help to come their way. If you are feeling stressed or worried; you need immediate support to free your life from the weight of your mind.

 All managers and middle business leaders must be equipped with mental health knowledge and skills so that they can early establish early warning mental health signs. By doing so, they are better placed to apply early preventive measures to reduce any possible injuries and damages.

Nine (9) early mental health signs:

Feeling worried or anxious:
You may feel worried and anxious about something that is not going right with you. Even if it means a small thing but it can add up to big issues. People who do not act end up in setbacks in life.

Feeling depressed or unhappy:

In life, we want to increase happiness than sadness. If you are feeling depressed and unhappy about something, you need to get it out quickly so that you are not chained to those issues before you. Our lives need freedom, not chained to unhappiness.

Emotional outburst.

Humans are rational beings and when things go wrong, they react with an emotional outburst. If you are experiencing an explosion on little issues, then you need the support of a psychotherapist or psychologist.

Sleep problems.

The people with the problem, sleep a lot or are sleepless. If you are experiencing a sleeping problem due to some internal issues, the best thing to do is seek counselling support.

Weight or appetite changes.

People with mental health issues eat a lot or eat less, thus gaining weight or losing weight. So, do not sleep on the issues that may chain your life into deep problems. Wake up and do something about it.

Quite or withdrawn.

People with lots of mental issues withdraw from social engagement and isolate themselves. The weight of the mind can push them away from social engagement, thus affecting overall well-being.

Substance abuse.

Many people with mental conditions. report to drugs and alcohol to relieve or treat their worries, but they offer temporary relief as after the happiness, the problems remain.

Feeling guilty or worthless.

When you are feeling guilty or worthless, this is a sign of mental health condition, so you need to seek a counsellor's support.

Changes in behaviour or feelings.

Behaviour change indicates mental health conditions, so if you are experiencing a change in your behaviour or others, counselling is the best place to help yourself.

Let us know if you are going through mental health conditions @ healthylivingbusiness20@gmail.com 

Symptomatic treatment for coronavirus-COVID19.

Coronavirus is a viral infection. No antibiotics can kill coronavirus. The coronavirus can be treated symptomatically.

What do you do?

Homemade treatment for dry cough sore throat:

You can do the following things to relieve yourself:

1. Just drink a pure cup of hot water. Drink as many as you can. It will relieve your dry cough and sore throat symptoms.
2. Get a ripe lemon, wash it well then cut it into half and sequence half of it into the 250 ml cup of hot water. It’s now ready for you to drink without adding sugar. If you need sugar, you can add some sugar, but I would recommend pure lemon warm water would be better.  This will help reduce the pain and inflammation caused by a sore throat and dry cough.
3. Go to the Pharmacy store and ask the shop assistant for sore throat relief cough medicine, or sore throat relief chewing tablets.

Treatment for fever and body aches & pains:

1. Get 2 X Pandol for four hours [adult does] to reduce fever and body aches. 
2. Soak your body with lukewarm water that can cool your temperature down
3. Drink plenty of house temperature water 
4. Sponge your body with cool water
5. Do not warm your house with a heater [you can make your judgment about where your locality is; especially those in cool temperature zones].

How to stream yourself?  

1. Sequence lemongrass, olive leaf, flowers or any tree leaf that are traditionally recommended in your area and smash garlic, ginger and lemon, add all into the mixture. 
2. Now fill the jar with water and bring it to boiling point.
3. Get a large sheet of bed-sheet or blanket. 
4. You move closer to the dish and move the dish between your legs [both legs, not close].
5. Get someone to pour the boiled water into the dish.
6. Cover all your body with the bed sheet or blanket.
7. The stream comes will out from the dish, so use your nostril to breathe in until you feel okay.

How to stream all houses?

1. Sequence lemongrass, olive leaf, flowers or any tree leaf that are traditionally recommended in your area and smash garlic, ginger and lemon, add all into the mixture.
2. Boil/heat stone on fire, ensure the stone is very hot.
3. Get pot/clay pot and fill the pot with smashed leaf and garlic, ginger & lemon [etc]. 
4. When the stone is brought to a boiling point, put it inside the pot.
5. Then pour the cool water slowly and the house should be on stream.
6. Take a deep stream breath through your nostril and release it out through your mouth.
7. Continue until you feel okay.

Home foods.

1. Eat plenty of vitamin C base fruits to boost your immunity system.
2. Drink plenty of house temperature water or warm pure water.
3. Eat good food but the right size to stay on top of the coronavirus

Rest & sleep.

You must allow your body to get enough rest and sleep so that your body fights the infection.

Seek medical attention.

If your breathing becomes worse and difficult to breathe, quickly seek medical attention.

Important note.
Be clear that the home treatment plans do not cure coronavirus but it reduces coronavirus symptoms.