256 Swords Road Holistic Therapy Centre, Santry, Dublin 9

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In 2015 I completed a 2-day training in Havening Techniques, a psychosensory therapy designed to assist recovery from trauma. Since then working towards certification I have completed 30 Havening sessions of 60-90 minutes each, plus a recording of a 15-minute extract from a session to demonstrate my ability to apply the Havening Techniques.

You can read about the Havening Techniques on www.havening.org

I am seeking a participant for the final 15 minute recording required for certification.

The session will take place in my therapy room in Dublin 7 and will consist of:

•  a discussion of the trauma or worry event you wish to work on – the discussion is not recorded.
•  an explanation of the Havening Techniques – this discussion is not recorded.
•  application of the Havening Techniques.  15 minutes of this is recorded, to have a video demonstration of my application ofthe technique. For your privacy during the recording we do not talk specifically about your event and memories we are working on.
• post-Havening discussion and session ending – this discussion is not recorded.

 If you are interested in participating in this exercise and so experiencing the Havening Techniques, or if you have questions about the recording and its disposal after certification, please get in touch.

email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.;  tel 086 6623774.

Over the Christmas break, I heard the belief expressed that in Ireland generally we have to wait for months to access any mental health service.  That prompted me to write this blog post, as I wondered if there was a conflation of the terms psychotherapist, psychologist, and psychiatrist at play there.  If someone is not in need of a clinical diagnosis, or does not require clinical psychological or psychiatric treatment and support, it may be that psychotherapy would be a useful option.

I know there are much more psychotherapists working in Dublin city and county than there are in the west of Ireland, and that is certainly one part of the problem.  But I suppose another part of the reason why people may not know how to access counselling and psychotherapy services is these are not yet regulated professions in Ireland and so are not organised under one professional body.  Prospective clients may not know a) how to find a therapist; b) if therapists are professionally trained; c) how much sessions can cost.  It appears that legal regulation of the counselling and psychotherapy professions is planned for Ireland in the near future.  This will bring its own advantages and drawbacks but in terms of giving clients more certainty about the training and professionalism of therapists and how to find them, it is a positive development.

In the meantime, anyone looking for a counsellor or psychotherapist can check the website of IACP, IAHIP, IAPTP, ACI…….. so many different accrediting bodies and how is someone looking for help supposed to make sense of these choices.  By the time someone gets to the point of looking for a counsellor, they may have had weeks, months or years of stress or distress – and really not have the energy or patience to process all that information.   

Just from talking to other therapists over the years, I know that some of us are also confused about or more happily unaware of the amount of organisations, subscription advertising directories, and accrediting associations that exist – some of which can appear to claim they are the best source of information on how to find a counsellor or psychotherapist in this country.

Your GP is a good place to start when trying to figure out how to access any health service, including the private practice therapists.  You could ask if s/he has names of any counsellors or psychotherapists in the area.

There may also be a fear that going to see a private psychotherapist instead of waiting to see a HSE appointed therapist, will be very expensive. 

For information on fees per session with a therapist, check out their listing in their accrediting organisation webpages, or check out the therapist’s own webpage if they have one and look for fee information there.  Some therapists will have their fees listed clearly, some will have something like ‘Fee Negotiable’ or ‘Fee €60.- (negotiable)’.  This word ‘negotiable’ can be a way of saying that the fees are not fixed in stone, for people who genuinely have severely restricted access to money for whatever reason for example if in an abusive relationship, on a case by case basis.  It is not an invitation for everyone to start negotiating over the fee.

Low Cost Counselling services are sometimes set up with two aims:

a) to help student / newly qualified counsellors and psychotherapists work with clients firstly to meet their training course requirements for practice hours, and secondly to meet the requirements for post-qualification professional accreditation;

b) to offer affordable counselling for people on low income.  Low Cost Counselling services can be run by a training college, or by a training college in cooperation with a Community Development Group for example, or by a therapy service with student / newly qualified counsellors working at no cost or low cost.

Part of the healing in therapy comes from the therapist working to create a safe space where the client can talk about what is causing distress, and where the therapist listens in a non-judgemental, respectful way.  As with any profession, increased ability and expertise comes with time and practice for the therapist.  However anyone authorised by their professional training course to see clients should be able to hold a respectful confidential practice that would be a useful resource to anyone needing a space to talk and who cannot afford to book sessions with a therapist in private practice.

An additional quality control would be to check if the student therapist’s course is itself accredited with one of the accrediting organisations in Ireland – IACP, IAHIP, etc.  (more information on accrediting organisations is included below).

Also, some qualified and accredited therapists, if they are running a full time practice, are able to offer one or more appointments per week at low cost for people on very restricted income.

Check for accreditation

At the moment, pre-regulation, registration for counsellors and psychotherapists with an accrediting body is voluntary, and each accrediting organisation can have different criteria for membership.  Still, membership of an accrediting body is some guarantee that the therapist will have reached a minimum level of training, have a commitment to working professionally and ethically and a commitment to continuing their professional development.

However, very rarely does a client say they found me through the webpage of IACP, the association with which I am accredited.  This makes me wonder that if the general public does not know about IACP, IAHIP etc, then do they also not know they should check if their therapist is trained and accredited (or working towards accreditation).

Here are some of the accrediting associations.  This is not a complete list, the range of associations and organisations in counselling and psychotherapy in Ireland is wide and varied.  Each association lists only the therapists who are subscribed to them, and there is a plethora of different associations:

• IACP (iacp.ie) – Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy - website has a drop-down menu to facilitate a county-by-county search;
• IAHIP (iahip.org) – Irish Association of Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy - website has an interactive county map to facilitate a county-by-county search;
• IAPTP (iaptp.ie) – Irish Association for Play Therapy & Psychotherapy - has a drop-down menu to facilitate a county-by-country search;
• ACI (addictioncounsellors.ie) - the Addiction Counsellors of Ireland association - does not have a drop-down menu but has a search facility on its webpage which you can use to search by county;
• The Irish Council for Psychotherapy (psychotherapycouncil.ie) has a search page which you can use to search for a particular therapist or search by area of interest or area geographically.

The HSE has a useful website which has a drop-down menu where you can search for mental health supports by county:  yourmentalhealth.ie. This website also lists organisations that give telephone, online, face to face or group support.  It does not list private practice counsellors and psychotherapists but gives the link to Counselling Directory.ie.  The Counselling Directory is a voluntary advertising service to which therapists sign themselves up, so it may well not have all the trained and accredited therapists in each county on their list.

The HSE provides a service called Counselling in Primary Care which their website states is ‘for people with mild to moderate psychological difficulties.  It is a short-term counselling service that provides up to 8 counselling sessions with a professionally qualified and accredited Counsellor/Therapist.’  You must be over 18 years of age and have a medical card to access this service, at the time of writing this blog post.  Their website is hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/Mental_Health_Services/counsellingpc.

The HSE runs The National Counselling Service, for adults who experienced abuse whilst in the care of the state as children.  Their website is hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/Mental_Health_Services/National_Counselling_Service.

There are also a number of smaller organisations that may not be listed by the HSE, for example one I was involved with a few years ago was The Rise Foundation, which works to support family members of people in addiction.  Your local GP or Citizens Advice Centre would have information about these smaller support organisations in your area.

Pleasetalk.ie gives a list of the supports available for students at the various third level institutions in Ireland.

If you are at immediate risk of self harm or suicide, Pieta House has several locations around the country, working with people at risk of suicide or self-harm, and giving support to people whose family or friends are at risk of suicide or self-harm.  Their website is www.pieta.ie.

So there are a variety of ways to find a therapist and most importantly a trained therapist.  I would advise a) ask your GP, b) look up the different accrediting organisations IACP, IAHIP, IAPTP, ACI, or c) look up the HSE website yourmentalhealth.ie.  If you find a counsellor or psychotherapist from any source other than their accrediting organisation,eg from an internet search for therapists in your area, do a quick check that they are listed on the website of the organisation with which they claim to be accredited.

Also remember that it can be better to wait a bit and try out different therapists until you find a practitioner with the right approach and skills to help you, than to stick with someone you just don’t feel is the right therapist for you.  If a therapist does not have any appointments available, you can ask if they operate a waiting list.  A therapist in private practice can have clients starting and finishing up throughout the year, so an appointment may become available in the next week or two.  I hope this has been helpful in explaining some of the ways to find a qualified counsellor or psychotherapist in your area.

All websites listed are valid at the time of posting this article.

My approach to therapy includes the mental, emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of the whole person.  I think it is great to see the topics of emotional and mental health in the mainstream media now as well as information about physical health.   When information and personal experiences of struggle and healing are shared, the topics of emotional wellbeing and holistic health become normalised. 

One example of an information and opinion piece on mental and emotional health is last year’s piece from Lauren Laverne in The Pool (https://www.the-pool.com/news-views/lauren-s-blog/20/lauren-s-cheering-up-list) about the idea of a Cheer-You-Up list.  The concept of a Cheer-You-Up list corresponds nicely, I thought, to the concept in mental health of a ‘tool-kit’ of resources to draw upon.  It is a simple idea, and one which I use in my therapy practice, but also one which can be difficult at first to engage with if you are feeling depleted.

The first step of this exercise is committing – to yourself – that you will deliberately raise your awareness regarding what feels good for you as you go about your daily life.  This in itself can be a challenge if you are struggling with prolonged low mood.  Your first thought on being asked to do this may be that nothing feels good, and this is why you are in therapy, and if your daily life felt good then you wouldn’t be in the therapist’s office in the first place.

However, this challenge can help to identify tiny moments when you feel less bad, or a little satisfaction, or pleasure.  It can help you to practice directing your attention to what is good, and so help you increase even a tiny bit by bit your joy, gratitude and motivation to continue.  It can help you to commit to deliberately including in your daily or weekly routine more of these actions/people/things which help you feel positive.  You are also asked to try to remember actions or things or people that helped you feel good in the past (if you are stressed/depressed you may have stopped engaging in activities or with people who are good for you).

While this therapy intervention recognises that a more satisfying life can be created in small daily steps, it is vital to avoid any sense of blame for the person who is experiencing difficulty.  When we are in a state of inertia or hopelessness it is almost impossible to imagine that making small changes in our daily habits can positively affect our emotional and mental state.  It is much easier to introduce more health and discipline to our lives when we are already feeling somewhat well.

I also recently read Karen Ward’s book ‘Change a Little to Change a Lot’ (see http://www.amazon.com/Change-Little-Lot-Balance-Lifestyle/dp/1903582911)  which gave really helpful and easy to achieve examples of how to bring positive healthy action and attitude into your life, step by step.

Sometimes you may be unable or unwilling to start noting what feels good until one day as an act of faith in your therapist or an act of desperation, you give this approach a chance.  Noting that something in your day does feel good, is not a disrespect to the pain you are feeling.   It is a step towards wellness when we can acknowledge what does feel good as well as acknowledging what is painful and honouring that we have experienced such pain.

Why not give it a try - see what would be in your 'tool-kit' for mental and emotional health.