Just like adults, children can also benefit from therapy. Psychotherapy can help children develop important interpersonal and problem-solving skills that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives. Therapy can also help a child to deal with behavioural issues that affect family relationships and school performance.

Life can be tough for young ones, what with peer pressure, homework, school bullying and exam stress. A transition, such as a new baby in the house, divorce, death of a grandparent, moving to a new home, abuse or illness can cause a young child severe mental anguish.

Many young children are not equipped to deal with stress and express their emotions in a healthy way yet, and therefore they act out. Certain behaviours, though merely a cry for help, might be socially unacceptable and could have devastating results.

behavioural issues that warrant intervention include sudden bedwetting, developmental delays or regressions, significant drop in grades, social isolation or withdrawal, aggression, appetite changes, changes in sleep patterns, tardiness or absenteeism at school, eating disorders, mood swings, frequent complaints about feeling ill without a medical cause,  or substance use. Therapy can help prevent, or deal with these behavioural issues.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is the most common treatment option for children with behavioural issues, as well as teenagers who struggle to cope with stress, are feeling anxious or depressed. This type of therapy helps to restructure thoughts to produce effective, positive mindsets. It is often achieved along with learning and practicing stress management techniques, coping skills and relaxation skills.  In addition many other approaches are used and which one works is really a function of preference and learning style.

If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who offers behavioural psychology for children to address your child's stress, anxiety or behavioural issues you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.

Family and Systemic Psychotherapy uses the close interpersonal relationships between family members to help one another. The key to dealing with family issues is to help couples, family members or siblings to explore difficult emotions and thoughts in a safe manner. It helps each member to understand and acknowledge one another's emotions and allow them to express it safely, and in an effective manner.

Family therapy has been shown to be effective for people of all ages who are experiencing family issues or problems in their key systems (relationships) with people with whom they are close. It helps to build relationships and boosts the strengths and self-esteem of everyone in the system. Your family might need intervention if members have substance abuse problems, violent outbursts, if the family experienced a trauma,  if a close family member died or if the family is not functioning at its normal capacity.

This type of therapy enables people to work with one another, instead of on one another and enables families to talk about issues that are causing distress without disrespecting emotions. Instead, it invites engagement of the family members in order to support recovery.

Therapists who address family issues use a range of different approaches to bring about the best results. While group therapy will probably take place once weekly, where the family will all meet with the therapist, individual sessions might be required too. This provides a great supplement to the  family therapy work and is an ideal place for individuals to express their personal family issues that are hard to discuss in front of everyone.

If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who does family counselling you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.

Chronic illness has the ability to affect you in more ways than just medically. In fact, it can impact you psychologically. The degree of impact is dependent on the person's personality and the circumstances before the diagnosis. Support structure plays an important role on a person's ability to cope, but oftentimes, a person has to go through various stages of dealing with the condition before they are able to adjust to the realities of the chronic illness.

When a person is diagnosed with a chronic illness, he or she will go through a number of stages similar to the stages of grief. Denial, disbelief and shock are just some of the emotions a person experiences when a diagnosis is made, and it's natural for them to resist major changes. Eventually, they will become exhausted, when all they really want to do is to recover. At that point, fear and anxiety will set in and worry in the face of uncertainty of the future.

Sadness, grief and depression are common emotions when they consider the possibility of lost goals, hopes and dreams. Losing independence is a real fear, which becomes inevitable if an illness progresses and that brings about the fear of being a burden to loved ones, which brings on more anger, resentment and even shame.

Counselling can help a person to deal with the emotions relating to chronic illness and to cope with the stress and anxieties of accepting and coping with life changes. It will help to regain personal control over life and yourself.

If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who works with in chronically ill individuals you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.