Child & Adolescent Counselling
Children's Counselling (ages 4-12)
As a Counsellor who works in Children's psychology, I'm acutely aware of the different developmental stages children go through as they age and mature. The stages such as emotional development, cognitive development, personality development, moral reasoning and their concept and awareness of self are all considered in my approach to children's therapy.
Children's counselling may be required for any number of reasons or issues. These could be due to trauma, bullying, problems with processing emotion or issues connecting with friends or parents. Children can also have a hard time dealing with changes whether those are at home (maybe divorce, moving house or new siblings) or at school (changing grades or moving school).
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Counselling for children can be proactive and educational whereby I can teach your child about emotional resilience or behavioural interaction skills in a developmentally appropriate way.
I regularly work with children going through behavioural issues (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) such as ASD management, emotional regulation, outbursts, and post trauma responses.
Resilience Therapy
Learning emotional resilience at an early age is a proactive counselling measure that can help children deal and manage the impacts of change well into the child's life.
Attachment-Based
This is how children learn to express comfort or discomfort in their formative years. This therapy is about creating a psychologically safe space so the child can openly communicate and process discomfort instead of becoming avoidant.
Expressive Therapies (Play Therapy)
Children's' brains are wired differently, they process emotions in an experiential way. Expressive therapies like play therapy help children process emotion and events through play or stories.
Adolescent, Youth & Teen Counselling (ages 12+)
Adolescents are at a key psychological developmental age where they may have issues with identity, the future or emotional maturity. With the perceived pressure at this age parents may notice that your teen pulls away or becomes less communicative. They might be having trouble at school, being bullied, not able to make friends easily or just feeling a little lost which are all common situations I see in therapy sessions.
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Counselling with individuals at this age requires communicating in a developmentally appropriate manner which often can be through games or creative approaches.
Person-Centred
This therapeutic approach is about helping the child explore their thinking around the issues they're having to assist in extracting the solutions they already have. This approach is about guiding decision making without giving 'advice'.
Systems-Based
Through systems-based therapy I explore the patterns occurring in the young person's life. I help them become more self-aware of these automatic behaviours and then explore the disparity between their current state of processing or management and their desired state.
Watch this video to learn more about my approach to child and adolescent counselling.