CHILD AND ADOLESCENT COUNSELLING
Whereas Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy helps with long-term emotional, physical, psychological and behavioural concerns in depth and over a long period of time, Child Counselling tends to be a shorter therapeutic intervention where counselling skills and creative interventions are used to help when a specific matter needs exploring and making sense of.
Child Counselling is also ideal for returning young therapy clients who are in need of what I call a 'therapy top-up' to help them process and make sense of new life developments or the re-emergence of feelings and behaviours linked to a specific matter previously worked with in therapy.
Note: When there is a history of childhood trauma and neglect and/or attachment-related needs then Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, or a longer specialist therapeutic intervention, is strongly recommended.
CHILD AND ADOLESCENT COUNSELLING SERVICES
I can help with the following matters:
a recent bereavement
a recent hospitalisation
parental divorce or separation
the arrival of a sibling
transitioning to secondary school
a national or international home move
relationship breakdown
blended families or parents remarrying
recent first-time experiences of being bullied
making sense of a recent diagnosis in the family
coming to terms with a recent parental health scare or diagnosis
EMDR THERAPY FOR SMALL CHILDREN (UNDER 5S), CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS
From birth the human brain is repeatedly wiring and rewiring itself through hundreds of billions of neural connections. This daily and constant neural activity supports human development and helps our brains make sense of the environment to process and assimilate new experiences and perceptions. These new experiences and perceptions are then integrated into existing neural networks, becoming part of the ongoing neurobiological make up of a person.
But sometimes when we witness or experience a traumatic event our brains become so overwhelmed with sensory, cognitive and emotional information that they cannot process all the distressing material linked to the event (images, emotions, thoughts, sensations...) Then the unprocessed distressing material becomes stored in the memory networks and can cause anxiety, relationship difficulties, phobias, flashbacks, loss of confidence, etc.
EMDR Therapy is an effective therapy modality that can be used to treat children and adolescents who are experiencing ongoing distress after one or multiple traumatic events.
Child counsellors and therapists trained in EMDR Child and Adolescent Therapy use this therapeutic modality and effectively adapt it to match different developmental needs and ages to help children and young people process trauma.
