PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES
MINDFULNESS-BASED APPROACH
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens. It also involves acceptance, meaning that you pay attention to your thoughts and feelings without judging them and without believing, for instance, that there’s a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to think or feel in a given moment. When you practice mindfulness, your thoughts tune into what we are sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future. It may ask you: 'What is happening in my body and mind right now, if I stop trying to fix or fight it?'
ACT AND COMMITMENT THERAPY
ACT is aimed at helping you to take active steps towards building a rich, full and meaningful life, and at the same time, helping you to develop psychological skills to be able to deal with painful thoughts and feelings in better ways, so that they have much less impact and influence on your life. For example, one of the core skills that ACT focuses is defusion - which means distancing yourself from, and letting go of unhelpful thoughts, beliefs and memories. It invites reflection on: 'Are my current coping habits bringing me closer to the life I want, or just keeping me safe and stuck?'
COMPASSION FOCUSED THERAPY
CFT is a system of psychotherapy that encourages you to be compassionate towards yourself and towards others, and helps you combat high levels of shame and self-criticism that often come hand-in-hand with mental health difficulties. CFT focuses on exploring the origins of emotional difficulties, which often lie in a history of abuse, bullying, neglect or lack of affection. Compassion involves a commitment to the alleviation of suffering - helping you to develop skills, so that you can successfully alleviate emotional pain. It turns your attention towards questions such as: 'How can I respond to my own pain with kindness rather than harsh self-judgment?' or 'If someone I deeply cared about were in this exact situation, what voice would I offer them?'
POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Unlike traditional psychology that focuses more on the causes and symptoms of mental illnesses and emotional disturbances, positive psychology emphasizes traits, thinking patterns, behaviours, and experiences that are forward-thinking and can help improve the quality of a person’s day-to-day life. These may include optimism, spirituality, hopefulness, happiness, creativity, perseverance, justice, and the practice of free will. It is an exploration of your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. It asks you to consider: 'What is already working well in my life, and how can I lean into my natural strengths?'
HUMANISTIC THERAPY
Similar to positive psychology, but with even greater depth - humanistic therapy is a psychological approach which is based on the theory that every human being is unique. Every individual makes choices based on their core beliefs. The therapy lets one explore their full potential, recognise their own power and unwrap the positives hidden within. In humanistic approach, rather than emphasizing the ways a person is dysfunctional or "less than," it focuses on their positive attributes. The therapist guides you in developing healthy behaviours instead of dwelling on the negative aspects of your life. You are seen as a good, powerful, and creative person. As you learn to view yourself from this positive perspective, you become more capable and successful in solving your problems. Some of the questions this approach explores are: 'Who am I when I strip away the expectations and roles given to me by others?' or 'What does my internal compass tell me that I truly need in this season of life?'
DIALECTICAL BEHAVIOUR THERAPY
DBT was explicitly created for patients who have a hard time discussing their emotions, especially negative ones. DBT can help you because it brings together the discomfort of discussing difficult subjects in therapy. More specifically, it is excellent for those that are impulsive or engaging in reckless behaviour, have had unstable relationships, and have difficulty regulating their emotions. Many people find traditional therapy uncomfortable. They become unable to discuss negative emotions and fail to make any progress. DBT can help you identify what you are feeling, why you are feeling a certain way and how to cope. DBT is an ideal treatment for those with personality disorders. It is also beneficial for people who struggle with addictions and need some tools to manage cravings or those who have experienced trauma and do not feel as though they have the coping skills to handle trauma processing. It opens the door to deeper questions: 'How can two opposing truths exist at the same time?' (e.g., 'I love my partner/family member deeply AND I am incredibly angry and frustrated with them right now') or 'How can I ride out this emotional storm without doing something that makes it worse?'
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY
Depth psychology describes a range of approaches to therapy that takes the unconscious into account, rather than one specific modality. This interdisciplinary approach to treatment is based on the idea that all people possess traits or elements of nature that may influence (often unconsciously) their natural processes. These processes - such as the ability to feel, choose, work, love, or think freely - may be affected negatively by some of these elements, and people may seek treatment in order to resolve distress experienced as a result of any unbalanced functions of their unconscious mind. Depth therapy may help you explore and consciously realize those forces having an effect and explore them in order to better understand your present situation. You may find yourself exploring questions like: 'What unexpressed parts of myself are operating beneath the surface of my awareness?' or 'What is this symptom, dream, or repeating life pattern trying to teach me?' or 'How can I integrate my shadow so I can feel like a whole, undivided person?'
EXISTENTIAL QUESTIONING
Existential questioning is a unique form of psychotherapy that looks to explore difficulties from a philosophical perspective. Focusing on the human condition as a whole, it highlights your capacities and encourages you to take responsibility for your loses and successes. Emotional and psychological difficulties are viewed as inner conflict caused by an individual's confrontation with the givens of existence. Major themes focus on your responsibility and freedom. Fostering creativity, love, authenticity and free will - are common avenues that can help you move towards transformation. An example of existential questioning may sound as follows: ‘What is our biggest mistake as humans?’ or ‘Is one life enough?’
TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY
While depth psychology turns our attention inward, exploring the hidden layers of the unconscious mind, and existential questioning explores our identity, meaning and what it means to be human, transpersonal psychology asks a wider question: 'What exists beyond the roles, stories, and ego-identity I have learned to identify with?' It explores the deeper dimensions of human experience - our capacity for transformation, creativity, connection, intuition and moments of profound awareness. It recognises that we are shaped not only by our past experiences, thoughts and emotions, but also by our values, our sense of purpose and our connection to something greater than ourselves. A key part of this approach is the idea of the higher self - not as a perfect version of who we should become, but as the deeper, wiser part of ourselves that can hold compassion, perspective and awareness. Transpersonal psychology recognises that we all contain different parts: the part that protects, the part that struggles, the part that longs for connection, and the part that carries old wounds. Through bringing these parts into greater awareness and harmony, we can reconnect with a deeper sense of self.
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