Positive Psychology is surely an ever growing branch of psychology and since its ethos is all about getting the best from life, I believe it can be readily used in counselling.
For many years psychology has centered on looking at problems and seeing if something can be carried out on them. Consequently so much focus may have been on What’s wrong instead of What’s right with folks. Somehow folks have become victims of the genes and environment and the best they can hope for would be to discover ways to tread water. Positive Psychology provides more than this. It teaches people how to swim and to swim well. We don’t just have to ‘make do’. It recognises that individuals are capable of real growth and change.
There are many ways Positive Psychology can be used in counselling and in reality it often flows quite well into widely accepted techniques like Solution Focused Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. For example Solution Focused Therapy functions to assist the client recognise the things they happen to be doing in their life, noting What’s better to them and what worked well before. Focus is on the solution rather than the problem. Whereas Seligman’s focus on learning optimism is all about recognising unhelpful thought patterns and understanding how to dispute and replace them. This is a fundamental part of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.
Beyond this, Positive Psychology provides us with an opportunity to nurture what is already in the individual, but many years of unhappiness and struggle mean the person is no longer in a position to recognise it. I see Positive Psychology offering a number of techniques (which may have ever growing scientific support for) which will help people cope when things fail. The best is usually to learn these techniques whilst things are good, enabling us to readily draw upon them in times of difficulty. This is the ideal. However, by integrating them into therapy the opportunity is given introducing ideas and techniques your client can take together. With that being said, looking for support during difficult times is actually a fundamental facet of Abel Kalpinand Prasad Adelaide, Sydney Melbourne Brisbane, whether this really is by way of a friend or the assistance of a mental health professional.
The term ‘Counselling’ is very likely to be utilized to describe meetings with a Counsellor who deals in specific issues, such as drugs and alcohol recovery. Counsellors during these specialisms may not have had the maximum amount of training, or as broad and deep a training, as psychotherapists. Some counsellors have undertaken only practicing for a specific kind of problem. These are typically issues which involve a treatment program of recovery, or which give advice. Some counsellors in these areas might not have had guzvvu themselves.
Psychotherapists is going to be likely to have experienced an extended training, in which they will likely happen to be required to undertake therapy on their own. This therapy may have lasted for at least the time period of their training, preferably longer. The therapist will be ready to get into a deeper therapeutic relationship with a client than the kinds of counselling mentioned previously. This may involve close listening from what the customer says, and reacting for this according to the particular approach in the therapist (see article on ‘Types of Therapy’ to learn more about different approaches).
Some of the ideas stemming from Positive Psychology i think are particular prevalent to counselling include eliciting personal strengths, learning optimism along with understanding the idea of control (i.e. the things we are able to and cannot control and what we can do about both). Work with gratitude and forgiveness will both have their place in a counselling environment. However, perhaps the most important concept so vital to Positive Psychology is definitely the certainly one of hope: the belief that things will get better. If a counsellor has no hope for their client, then exactly what is the point?
