At Orlawhelanpsychotherapy we offer counselling and psychotherapy

The difference between Counselling and Psychotherapy

There can be an overlap between counselling and psychotherapy. Counselling is sometimes all that an individual needs and it is generally about addressing something in the environment, something that needs to be worked through e.g. problems with a partner the impact of an accident, problems in work. Psychotherapy deals with deeper issues and is about developing a greater understanding of oneself and bringing about lasting psychic change.

Some of the reasons people come to therapy.

• Stress
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Grief
•  Mourning
•  Loss
• Trauma
• OCD
• Relationship issues
• Gender identity
• Abuse
• Bullying
• Self harm
• and other psychological issues…

Anxiety, stress and tension are the biggest limiting factors in the achievement of our goals. Humans manage fear very well – we learn how to manage or avoid the object we are frightened of. However with anxiety or stress we cannot easily identify the cause and our emotions seem to be all consuming, overwhelming – too big to grasp, often leading to panic attacks. Psychotherapy allows us to identify these hidden causes, allowing our normal coping mechanisms to operate.

Depression and mourning are closely allied and the devastating sense of pain and loss experienced can have many similarities.  There is an essential analogy between depression and the mourning process where the common factor is the loss of something or someone precious, the “loved object”, the important career, the promotional opportunity. Just like when a loved one dies, in depression it seems like part of ourselves has also died. A death can lead to complicated grief. In fact a loss of any sort, such as moving abroad to work can have lasting effects. In these cases talking to a psychotherapist may be helpful in resolving internal conflict. It is normal to experience a major loss as traumatic or inhibiting.  In some cases emotions can become overwhelming.