The Listening Ear Counselling Service

This involves exploring your thoughts, feelings and behaviours talking at your own pace and in your own way. 

Examples include:

• Person Centred: Focusing on the here and now, which is not directive, offering no judgment,  providing empathy and genuineness.
• Psychodynamic therapy:  Helps people understand how unconscious thoughts and past experiences influence their current behaviour, feelings, and relationships. 
• Integrative:  A blend of different approaches tailored to the individual's needs.
• Humanistic:  Emphasis on self-discovery and personal growth by focusing on the individual's feelings and potential. 

Why it helps: it identifies and understand the patterns in your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, as well as the origins of your feelings. 

Symbolic approaches use metaphors, imagery, and symbols to represent internal experiences.

Examples include:

• Sand tray therapy: Using miniature figures and objects in sand to create scenes that reflect inner worlds.
• Use of metaphors: Helping clients describe their feelings or situations through symbolic language (e.g., “I feel like I’m carrying a heavy backpack”).
• Dream work: Exploring dreams as symbolic representations of unconscious thoughts.

Why it helps: Symbolic strategies can make abstract or overwhelming emotions more tangible and manageable.

Somatic (body-based) approaches focus on the connection between body and mind, especially in trauma recovery.

Examples include:

• Breathwork and grounding exercises: To regulate the nervous system.
• Movement therapy: Such as dance or yoga to release tension and reconnect with the body.
• Body scanning: Increasing awareness of physical sensations linked to emotional states.
• Touch or sensory integration (used carefully and ethically): To help clients feel safe and present.

Why it helps: Trauma and stress often manifest physically; somatic strategies help clients reconnect with their bodies and release stored tension.