What change can you expect from Therapy/Counselling?

This is based on Christine Lister-Ford’s (2002) model, which describes the process of therapy and what you might experience as we work together.

  1. The client tells their story, important information is gathered, and the practitioner and client develop their working relationship.
  2. The client develops insight and awareness about themselves and the origin of their problems.
  3. Next comes the working through stage. During this stage the client will release “held emotions related to going against their human wants and needs” (1). Sometimes clients need to grieve for the past – opportunities they’ve missed because of their self-imposed limitations. Clients become free to re-evaluate their lives, free from the limitations of the old destructive patters of thinking, feeling and behaving that had been holding them back.
  4. The redecision stage comes next, which is where the clients makes and acts upon decisions they have made for themselves based upon their new freer way of being. Clients will experiment with “being different both inside and outside the counselling session” [1]
  5. Succeeding and ending counselling. This is the point at which the client has achieved their goals and is happy to review their work and end the therapy.

[1] Lister-Ford, C. (2002) Skills in Transactional Analysis Counselling and Psychotherapy London: Sage, p 12