Adult counseling & coaching
We provide a safe, confidential and caring space for clients where they can be heard and seen for who they are. We support them to explore their current situation and find sustainable solutions. We also support personal growth and help clients unlock their potential to grow and thrive.
Themes that are usually explored include: relationship problems; emotional problems; coping with isolation, intimacy, sexuality, identity or purpose issues; self-care, psychological support in health concerns or regimens, life transitions (changing home, job, career…), setting goals, embodiment, enhancing the level of energy in everyday life. We also offer support to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Individual Counseling for Kids
Counseling on line has become the norm so we are now able to offer counseling and support to kids as young as age 8, providing they have the attention capability to meet with us. Session times can be modified for younger children. We offer an interactive approach so that kids can “stay with us” during an on-line session. Kids benefit from counseling and coaching like teens and adults because humans thrive when they can talk about things that are bothering them.
Controlling, denying or stuffing/repressing emotions often leads to acting out behaviors in all ages. With counseling, kids learn how to identify feelings, which is the first step in managing emotions. The support our staff offers kids is helpful to them because feeling alone or being unsure how to deal with something can prevent kids from maturing. So, with counseling, it is often the beginning of a healthy sense of self.
Individual Counseling for Adolescents
Most teens have grown up using computers and social media, so working virtually with one of our staff members is second nature for a teen. Teens are often moody and non-trusting of adults and our staff is adept at helping them open up. This is done through using a NO JUDGEMENT ZONE approach.
When teens feel that they can say what is on their mind and feel “heard and valued” they tend to open up even more, thus allowing for emotional exploration which leads to emotional regulation. This is an important part of the maturation process and our staff is trained to help kids through this time in their life.
Family Counseling
Family counseling is helpful when families are fractured and not operating from the same set of standards. Working with families requires extra time (usually 80-minute sessions instead of the 50 minute sessions for individuals). Families need to learn how to harmonize themselves. The analogy we often use is that while everyone in the family may play their own instrument beautifully, when they sit in the orchestra pit, there is no director and the music sounds off key.
Our goal is to help families play from the same sheet of music. We help them identify issues, come to agreements on how they will interact, and teach them what it means to have healthy boundaries. We help family members learn a “feeling vocabulary” and how to speak to each other in a non-judgemental and respectful manner.
Parent counseling, coaching & psychoeducation
We support parents and caregivers find their natural power to guide and care for the young ones. We offer parent counseling, coaching or psychoeducation. Third culture kids come with specific challenges and so do their caregivers. In lives filled with transitions, everyone in the family is making an adjustment of some sort. It involves moving homes, separating from loved ones and feelings of isolation in a new country, renegotiating new roles, changes in family routine, career concerns, children changing schools and social circles, and cultural adjustment to name just a few. These stressors alone can contribute to the plethora of emotional, behavioural and relational challenges already present in family life. Both kids and adults can feel frustrated, alarmed, confused or even lost.
And now there is another common denominator: the COVID-19 pandemic, which adds to the challenges faced by expat parents and their kids. We can help you address these challenges. Furthermore, we will support you in finding love, joy and connection with your child. This will deepen your relationship and help them mature as well as protect their fragile roots. From here on we can talk about building resilience, thriving, curiosity, empathy, engagement, genuine identity and maturation – which are all what we wish for our kids.
We do not have to see your child or adolescent to support you as a parent. Both you and your child will benefit along the way.
Psychoeducation for teachers & school professionals
Schools and teachers matter more than ever. It is estimated that children spend most of their waking hours in school settings during the week. We encourage schools to make good use of this time and become agents of positive change in their students’ lives. Schools can also tap into their own potential to serve as a community for expat families. Whether you want to support your students, strengthen your relationships with families or empower your teachers we provide services to support you. Lectures, workshops or facilitation of peer support groups are available. They cover various topics and can be adapted to your school’s specific situation.
Group Therapy
Group Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that treats an individual “in the group, by the group.” The collective situation reduces the severity of censorship inside the individual who is brought out of his/her isolation into a social situation in which (s)he can feel adequate. While he can express himself freely according to his own inclination, he can feel understood as well as show understanding for others. He is a fellow being on equal terms with the others.
Therapeutic goals includes:
- Elimination and reduction of symptoms
- Improved quality of interpersonal relationships
- Better quality of everyday life
- Change in the personality structure
- Lower/reduced absenteeism.
Group therapy can be conducted in person and on-line.
Individual psychotherapy
Individual psychotherapy is a treatment conducted by a trained professional within a set framework in order to improve the mental and emotional health of a Client. It offers people a chance to create a new way of thinking and behaving in order to improve the quality of their lives. Since most of the ways people think about themselves and deal with their environment evolved as they grew up, we think of this process as “reactivating development.” Change happens not only because people learn new things about themselves, but also because they feel safe enough to try out new ways of thinking and behaving in the context of this new relationship – the therapeutic relationship.