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Coping with Domestic Violence

Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, abused or coerced into sex into her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family. The prevalence of domestic violence is difficult to determine for several reasons: it often goes unreported, and there is some ambiguity about what […]

Counselling Case Study: Domestic Violence

The client, Gary, called to make his first appointment and said he was persuaded by “a mate” to attend counselling to control his anger. In short Gary was a perpetrator of physical abuse against his intimate female partner, Julie, who is 22 years of age. The couple have no children but his partner has recently […]

A Case of Loss and Grief

Jim had come to counselling to seek help with dealing with the sale of his late mother’s estate. He was experiencing a lot of anger with the issue and also with his brother, Frank, who was joint inheritor. Frank was facing bankruptcy and needed the proceeds of the sale of the family home to save […]

Counselling Case Study: Working with Grief

Grief is a complex and individual process. There are a number of well documented stages to the grief process such as numbness, guilt, despair, panic and acceptance to name a few. The order in which these stages are experienced and the intensity and duration of each stage will be different for each individual. It is […]

Stress at Work

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” (Natalie Goldberg) Stress in the workplace is common and caused by many different factors and issues. Many problems may never be fully resolved and the amount of stress a person experiences is often determined by whether or not they can accept that some […]

Handy Tools for Combating Stress

“When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan’s Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out […]

Stress Prevention Tips

“It is better to intervene than remediate” Preventing stress is the best remedy to reduce the effects of stress in daily life, and its potential (and negative) consequences. There are three broad areas which comprise many strategies of stress prevention, particularly in the workplace. Such areas involve making decisions, avoiding procrastination and delegation. Make Decisions […]

An Insight into the Solution

This case history details a significant time in the life of the Smith-Curtis* family. This family did not come to counselling voluntarily, but were referred by the Department of Families after substantiated allegations of abuse and neglect of their two children. The counselling agency, (a non-government service provider), is experienced in working with involuntary clients […]

Graduate Story: Davina Gleeson

AIPC Graduate Davina Gleeson shares her story… I never thought I’d be writing my own success story, just like the one’s I read at the beginning of my studies. About halfway through the Diploma we were living on a remote island and experienced a traumatic house fire that destroyed ninety percent of our possessions; photo’s, […]

How to Manage Stress

How do we cope with stress? There are literally thousands of books, articles and websites that cover stress and stress management. However, the ancient and natural ways are probably still the best ways towards peace and serenity. The old adage, ‘prevention is better than cure’ is certainly true for stress management. Here are some tips […]

Stress in Stages

Earlier in this series we’ve defined several types of stress which originate from similarly related events or stressors. Likewise, there are varied overlapping stages which constitute what we call stress. In a nutshell, the stages of stress denote the responses to the various stressful events an individual may undergo, and the accumulative effect of such […]

A Cycle of Dysfunctional Parenting and Unsatisfactory Child Development

[NB All names have been changed] Beatrice is a 40-year-old married mother of four children; she married young and over time she and her husband separated on three occasions. Her husband previously subjected her to both psychological and physical abuse. As a child she lost her mother to suicide leaving her to be raised by […]