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    The Counselling Sessions: Overcoming Irritability and Anger in Relationships
    The Counselling Sessions: Overcoming Irritability and Anger in Relationships
    The Counselling Sessions: Overcoming Irritability and Anger in Relationships
    Ebook150 pages2 hours

    The Counselling Sessions: Overcoming Irritability and Anger in Relationships

    By Louise Palmer

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    About this ebook

    The book shows a scripted conversation between a counsellor and a client over six counselling sessions. It is based on real-life counselling sessions. The themes are based on real events that occurred during counselling sessions with various clients who were struggling to control their feelings of irritability and anger towards their partner. Before coming to the counselling sessions, the clients were experiencing increasing resentment towards their partner which was threatening the strength and happiness of their relationship.

    There are brief counsellor notes throughout each session to help the reader understand why the counsellor asked particular questions or responded in a certain way.

    The therapy used is called 'Solution Focused Therapy'. It is a brief therapy that is designed to focus on the resources of the client. It focuses on strengths and aims to help the client become aware of their own solutions through a specific set of questions. It encourages the client to think about the future and only uses the past as a means to identify what works and does not work for the client.

    About the Author
    Louise Palmer is a Psychologist and Solution Focused Therapist who has worked in the psychological field for over 10 years. She has delivered solution focused therapy sessions to a wide range of clients who have had various concerns such as anxiety, depression, stress, eating disorders, relationship problems, health problems and addictions.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLouise Palmer
    Release dateAug 18, 2016
    ISBN9781370257119
    The Counselling Sessions: Overcoming Irritability and Anger in Relationships

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      Book preview

      The Counselling Sessions - Louise Palmer

      The Counselling Sessions

      Overcoming Feelings of Irritability and Anger in Relationships

      By Louise Palmer

      Copyright © 2015 by Louise Palmer.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

      Contents

      Introduction

      Session One

      Session Two

      Session Three

      Session Four

      Session Five

      Session Six

      Introduction

      This book is based on real-life counselling sessions. The themes are based on real events that occurred during counselling sessions with various clients.

      The therapy used is called 'Solution Focused Therapy'. It is a brief therapy that is designed to focus on the resources of the client. It focuses on strengths and aims to help the client become aware of their own solutions through a specific set of questions. It encourages the client to think about the future and only uses the past as a means to identify what works and does not work for the client.

      Session One

      (The first session is aimed at finding out about the client's concerns and finding out what has helped and what has not helped so far. I want to keep a focus on what has worked so far in the hope of keeping the session positive and solution focused. I had a brief telephone call with the client a week before the session to ask her to notice if there were any positive changes. Many clients, when asked to notice positive changes, can identify at least a few. As the client has started to achieve positive change before the counsellor gets involved, it can increase her confidence and help her to appreciate that she was already making positive changes before seeking help.)

      Counsellor: Hi, you must be Jessica.

      Client: Yes, I am. Hi. I feel a bit nervous about today. I’m not sure I should be here really. It’s just I thought, you know, that I have this problem that I just can’t seem to sort out on my own.

      Counsellor: We can all do with a bit of help sometimes.

      Client: Yes, that’s true. Thanks.

      Counsellor: So if it’s okay with you, I would like to start by telling you a little bit about what will happen during the session.

      (I want to explain to the client the solution focused approach. I need to get her buy-in, in order for the sessions to be effective. I need to set her expectations at the start.)

      Client: Yes of course.

      Counsellor: I think it's important for me to grasp what your concerns are and how you would like things to be different. My belief is that you have a lot of strengths and skills that will help you overcome these difficulties. Part of my role is to listen out for these and ask you questions about them. I believe that we can learn a lot from what is working well in our lives and I hope that we can spend time discussing this. I won't be advising you on what you should and shouldn't do. Instead I want to work with you to develop solutions together

      Client: Right.

      Counsellor: I would prefer to focus on the future and solutions. I use a therapy called Solution Focused Therapy. This type of therapy has very good results and it is usually much briefer than traditional counselling methods which look into the causes of problems.

      Client: Oh. So you won’t be looking at the causes of my problems?

      Counsellor: We will look at ways to proactively manage the situation. The therapy doesn’t pull up the past and use that to justify behaviour. I believe that while the past can shape a person, it doesn’t mean it has to dictate the future. I believe you are not stuck with ‘your lot’ just because you experienced something in the past.

      Client: Oh I see.

      Counsellor: I believe you have the ability to take control.

      Client: That would be nice! Yes, I do too. I think we are who we are due to our experiences but we have the power to change it.

      Counsellor: Excellent. We are on the same page. You will notice that I will make notes throughout the session. I am not 'analysing' you. I am merely making notes to aid my memory. At the end of the session I like to summarise what we have covered. Is this all okay with you so far?

      Client: Yes. Will you not analyse me at all then?

      Counsellor: Well, we will think through the way you approach things and how you think about things together.

      Client: Right.

      Counsellor: Great. So we spoke briefly on the telephone last week. Can you tell me what your concerns are at the moment?

      Client: I almost feel silly saying this. It’s not like I have a mental health issue or anything. Well, actually perhaps I do. I mean I’m sure that you see all sorts of people in this office that are struggling with life far more than me. I almost feel a fraud being here.

      Counsellor: There is clearly something in your life that needs addressing otherwise you wouldn’t want to be here. So, what are your concerns?

      Client: It’s my anger. I have anger issues. But it’s not with everyone. Well most of the time. It’s just with my partner. I say that, but I do get angry with family and friends but I can control that most of the time and still be pleasant to them. It’s the anger that I feel when my partner does something that annoys me that I just can’t seem to control. In fact, I don’t even have the desire to want to control my anger in that situation. It’s like I’m mad at him and I want him to know just how mad I am. I don’t care in that moment what comes out of my mouth or how I act. I feel like I just have to get it off my chest. Sometimes I have a small voice in my head that says ‘don’t say anything, keep it to yourself’ but that small voice never wins. Well, it hardly ever wins.

      (At this point, I feel that the client needs to tell me about her problem. While the sessions are mainly solution focused, it is important that I don’t try to move on to looking at solutions too quickly. The client needs to have a certain amount of problem talk at the beginning in order to feel that I understand her situation fully.)

      Counsellor: Okay.

      Client: I just want to be a better girlfriend. I want to feel proud of who I am and not feel ashamed. Sometimes I worry that he tells his friends about how I really act when no one is around. I would be so ashamed. I am a complete cow to him sometimes. It’s like he is the most important person in the world to me, well one of the most important people in the world to me, yet I treat him so badly behind closed doors. And that’s the other thing. If we are in public and with friends, then I can control my behaviour. I can control my anger. But as soon as we are on our own it all comes spilling out. I just can’t seem to stop myself.

      Counsellor: Okay. So what are you hoping to achieve from these sessions?

      (It’s important I know what the client wants to achieve from the sessions. I could probably guess but every client’s situation is different. Also, it helps the client to think through exactly what they want to achieve in order for them to have a specific goal in mind.)

      Client: I don’t want to be this way anymore. I want to be a good girlfriend. I don’t want to spend my time nagging him, arguing with him, reacting badly to things he says or does.

      Counsellor: So what do you want instead?

      (It's important that the goal is worded positively rather than negatively. I want to know what the client wants rather than what she doesn't want.)

      Client: Hmm...I want to have a healthy happy relationship.

      Counsellor: What does a healthy happy relationship look like to you? What would be happening in your relationship?

      Client: Hmm...it is hard to think about how the relationship would be if we weren’t arguing.

      (Silence)

      (Here I am using silence in order to encourage the client to delve deeper into her thoughts. You will see that I see use this technique quite a lot.)

      Client: I guess we would just be doing normal couple stuff.

      Counsellor: What would normal couple stuff be?

      (It is important to clarify what ‘normal couple stuff’ would be in order for the client to have a clear idea of what she wants to achieve.)

      Client: Just doing activities I guess, just having fun, being carefree, just enjoying our time together with no drama, just enjoying each others’ company.

      Counsellor: And what difference would that make to you?

      Client: Oh it would be great. I would feel like we were having fun again. Like there was a purpose to us being together again. Just enjoying each other rather than fighting all the time. I mean he does do things that are annoying and he doesn’t change when I ask him to. I can ask him to change something about himself a million times and he still doesn’t. He says he will and he might for a few days but then things go right back to where they were before. It is so frustrating. I know it’s not all me. He is to blame too. I did try to get him to come to these sessions too, but he refused. He didn’t want to have relationship counselling. I told him it wasn’t really like that. It was just to talk things through so that we can be happier and argue less. He felt that there was nothing wrong with the relationship and certainly not anything wrong enough to warrant counselling.

      Counsellor: Just working with one person can make a large difference to any relationship. So to clarify, if you were able to solve this problem, you would be enjoying your time together again and having fun.

      Client: Yes.

      Counsellor: What difference would that make to your life?

      (I am asking this question to further motivate the client’s desire to achieve a positive change. Helping

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