About choosingchange Relationships...
The choosingchange approach utilises the theory that a creative, careful and scientifically based set of guidelines are critical for effective relief of symptoms and sometimes cure of psychological distress in relationships.
Most counselling and psychological practices will see clients that range in age from 8 to 80 with issues as wide ranging as pre-marriage, marriage, relationship and couple counselling, grief and loss to personal development psychotherapy, and drug and alcohol addiction as well as a host of other distressing situations and conditions.
If the words “different strokes for different folks” were etched into the glass of every counsellor’s or psychologist’s practice door, and if everyone took notice of this dictum with each client, the effectiveness of therapy would be greatly enhanced.
Working together
When this methodology is applied with care and respect there is a greater chance of a successful therapeutic experience. Once time is taken to determine how you operate in the world, what your schema is, how you perceive things and what you believe, then chances are we (you and your therapist) can find ways to make a difference. I say “we” because you, the reader (the client), is the expert in your world. Learning from you how you see things, how you feel about things is paramount to the process of therapy. Once some of this stuff is known, when this vital information is present in the conversation, the therapeutic process operates more clearly more effectively. It is a united effort. New world discoveries and alternative ways of seeing, understanding, appreciating and doing arise. Hopefully that will help you feel a lot better about a whole lot of things that are going on in your life.
Why choosing change?
The “change” part is probably easily understood. This book offers some ways of bringing change into your life. The “choosing” is a little different. Although you may want change, is it by your choice or is a demand from someone else, your partner maybe? If that is the case then we are in the Metropolis of Problemillis. Nothing happens, nothing changes, unless you want it to happen.
You will also have noticed by now the rather subtle emphasis placed on the word choice. Specifically, the way typeface changes from plain to a flowing script for the change part. And that flowing typeface begins toward the end of choosing. Once you decide to choose to change, change begins.
choosingchange
It is clear each of the six and a half billion (at last count) people in the world have different ways of seeing things. It is also clear many of us agree on certain things. However, many of us disagree. The United Nations exists because sometimes we can’t get along very well and so we need to continually have conversations about our differences in order to just live next door to each other. Some of us realise that it’s a fantasy that we would be happier if we controlled the world and everybody believed what we believed. It is this very realisation that allows us to have an empathic understanding of other people’s point of view.
Why Building and Maintaining your Relationships?
Sometimes, even in the United Nations with all it’s complexity and thousands of people attending meetings and translating and negotiating, things don’t quite work. Nations walk out or are expelled. People argue and fight. When we are not getting our way it is sometimes difficult to see the wood from the trees.
Seeing things from another’s point of view is called empathy. Empathy helps us get along in the world because we can see things from a different perspective (another persons schema) which helps us understand how the other person may feel in certain circumstances. Expecting everyone to follow the schema that drives you is sometimes expecting too much. If I ruled the world things would be very different to the way they are. Unfortunately, I don’t rule the world and am unlikely to. Is that the case for you?
Relationships don’t just happen. A common mistake most people make is that just because I fall in love, I will always be in love, you will always love me and we will always be happy together.
The job of a child is to live in the world, enjoying all the experiences they come across, being guided by their parents and the other other adults they encounter. The job of an adult (the adult brain only begins to seriously moderate behaviour, act rationally, at around the age of 25) is to be the parent and adult for themselves.
When we fall in love, our child is completely in control. This is why so many relationships falter. People in love fail to realise they are sometimes blind, sometimes hoodwinking themselves.
Contact
-1300 667 996
-02 9362 3025
-0425 281 251
Clinical Member of Counsellors & Psychotherapists Association of NSW Inc (CAPA), and is listed on the PACFA National Register
Suite 310, Level 1
147 King Street
Sydney CBD NSW 2000
Between Pitt
& Castlereagh Streets
Opposite MLC Center
Minutes from Town Hall,
Martin Place and Wynyard
Parking at MLC Center
