The Counselling Place: counselling for self-improvement

7500A Beach Road, #04-323 The Plaza. Tel: 6887 3695. www.thecounsellingplace.com
Business established: Six years
Niche: Multi-lingual counselling and related support for children, teens, adults, couples and families.

Trained in Australia, Director and Registered Psychologist Shee Wai started The Counselling Place after working with the expatriate community for seven years. She realised there was a distinct lack of qualified, ethical, experienced therapists to provide a high standard of service to meet the unique needs of this sector. Backed by her innate gift and vocation for healing, Shee Wai started with two staff but now practises with a team of 12 multinational therapists. Offering a range of counselling services in English, French, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese, the Practice understands the subtle cultural nuances necessary in providing a holistic support system.
TF: What are the benefits of counselling?
SW: Counselling helps you escape from your current situation, have a shift in perspective, and have a better understanding of yourself and the people in your life. It also teaches you new skills, allows space for reconciliation and new relationships to develop, and encourages you to heal from past hurts.
TF: Counselling had a negative stigma attached to it in the past. Is that still the case?
SW: The myth about counselling is it's only for people with serious problems. Some believe they should be able to cope with life without any help and consider counselling a weakness while others believe their problems should be kept private.
     Counselling can help everyone. It's predominantly for self improvement. The earlier you seek counselling, the better you'll be able to avoid a bad situation getting worse. We're not always equipped with the necessary skills to deal with different life stages - no one gives us a marriage or parenting manual. A therapist can be an objective voice of reasoning, because he or she is not emotionally invested in your situation. And armed with skills and experience from their training, a therapist can guide you towards the right answers.
TF: As a counsellor how do you refrain from becoming emotionally involved in your patient's life?
SW: The first skill a therapist learns is to maintain boundaries. To protect the safety of the therapeutic relationship and our counsellors' mental health, The Counselling Place has established boundaries when it comes to the amount and type of contact the client can have with their counsellor. Group support and supervision also helps therapists to deal with any emotions left over from their sessions. It also helps if the therapists take time to care for themselves and have support from family and friends who understand what this job entails.

Ho Shee Wai's tips on finding a good counsellor...

• Have a strong clientele willing to recommend and attest to the quality of his or her work.
• Have at least Master level qualifications and be registered/accredited by the relevant professional body. They should also continually engage in further training to keep skills up-to-date.
• Be supervised by another therapist to ensure there's someone monitoring their professional growth and development. A new therapist with a good supervisor is better than an experienced therapist without any.
• Set boundaries with their clients. A therapist who's available round-the-clock and shares personal contact details may seem caring, but is in fact violating professional ethics - indicating their inability to contain the problem or client.
• Be able to understand and pinpoint the root of the problem, and have the skills and strategies to help clients out of the situation. Although you may be tempted to access your potential therapist over a causal call, the only way to know if you're both a good fit is to sit through the first session and see what the therapist can offer.
  

Posted on Oct 2011