Trauma/PTSD

You may have been traumatized if you experienced, witnessed or were confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical safety of self or others and you:
 
• Have intrusive memories, dreams, or nightmares
• Experience flashbacks (visual or thoughts) of your experience
• Feel upset by things that remind you of the event
• Avoid having thoughts and feelings related to your experience
• Forget some or all of the details of the event
• Have lost interest in your daily activities
• Feel detached
• Have difficulty experiencing emotions or feelings
• Feel like you have no future
• Have difficulty sleeping or feel restless
• Feel increased irritability and/or anger
• Have difficulty concentrating
• Feel on guard for danger
• Feel jumpy or find that you are easily startled
 

Note: You do not have to experience all of the above symptoms to be considered traumatized by an experience. Some of the situations which typically lead people to be traumatized may include:

• Motor vehicle accidents
• Surviving an assault
• Surviving abuse (including physical, sexual, or emotional abuse)
• Sudden loss
• Severe injury

 Counselling can help you overcome your symptoms of trauma and return to normal functioning by helping you to:
 
• Gain control over your unpleasant memories and/or flashbacks
• Understand that your symptoms are a normal reaction to an abnormal experience
• Feel safe enough to talk about your traumatic experience and the feelings related to it
• Feel in control of your feelings again
• Reconnect and trust people after you have been hurt
• Regain a feeling of safety in your life
• Learn new techniques to gain mastery over your symptoms

Relationship Issues

You may benefit from relationship counselling if you:

• Feel emotionally detachedfrom your partner
• Find it difficult to talk to your partner
• Feel misunderstood in your relationship
• Feel alone despite being in a relationship  
• Constantly feel criticized by your partner
• Would describe your relationship as defensive
• Don't feel that your partner listens to you
• No longer feel appreciated by your partner
• Are missing the friendship component in your relationship
• No longer spend time together as a couple
• Find it difficult to reach a compromise with your partner
• Feel that your partner has contempt for you
• Suspect your Spouse/partner is involved in an affair
 
Counselling can help you overcome your relationship difficulties by helping you to:

• Communicate with your partner more effectively
• Create a culture of love, respect, and support in your relationship
• Foster a stronger emotional connection to your partner
• Create an emotionally safe and trusting climate within your relationship
• Create new rituals of connection in your relationship
• Rediscover your couple friendship
• Express your feelings in a manner that your partner will be receptive to
• Appreciate one another in the relationship
• Confront and overcome the damage caused by emotional and physical affairs
• Establish a climate of each partner taking responsibility for their behavior in the relationship
• Understand and support each others dreams
• Learn new tools to make fighting more constructive
• Become effective at repairing your relationship when things go wrong

Children and Families

Your child or family may benefit from counselling if:

• You are concerned your child is having frequent temper tantrums or misbehaviour
• You are experiencing ongoing conflict with your child without resolution
• Your child is having difficulties performing academically at school
• Your child is experiencing bullying
• You are concerned your child is experiencing difficulties socially or with friendships
• Your child has had a traumatic experience or witnessed one
• Your child has difficulty expressing their feelings or concerns
• You are having difficulty managing your child's behaviour

 Counselling will assist you in overcoming these difficulties:
 
• Become more aware of the physical signs of your anger and how they are triggered
• Increase your awareness of feelings other than anger
• Change how you feel about situations that trigger your anger by changing the way you think
• Develop strategies to either avoid or overcome situations most likely to trigger your anger
• Learn new tools to manage and control your angry feelings and responses

Addictions

You may benefit from counselling for an addiction if:

• You have lost control of your substance use and/or behaviour
• You neglect activities that should be given more priority or importance in your life
• You take risks to maintain your addiction
• You feel your addiction is negatively effecting your personal relationships
• You keep your addiction a secret from others
• You are neglecting your self-care/hygiene
• You have a family history of addiction issues
• Your tolerance towards the addictive behaviour and/or substance abuse has increased over time
• You experience withdrawal symptoms after stopping the addictive pattern
• You continue the addictive substance/behaviour despite negative consequences in your life

Counselling can help you overcome your addiction by:

• Helping you deal with physical and/or emotional withdrawal symptoms
• Helping you identify and resolve underlying issues sustaining your addiction
• Assisting you in developing a positive support network in your life
• Helping you to maintain controlled substance use and/or sobriety
• Helping you control your triggers and cravings
• Helping you to feel better about yourself
• Helping you to learn new strategies to deal with stress
• Assisting you to bounce back and cope with relapses