Addictions - Including Substances, Creativity, Self-Esteem Issues Counsellors

While some people can use prescription or recreational drugs with no negative effects, many others become addicted and face dramatic health and lifestyle problems as a result. Substance addictions negatively affect relationships, home, school or work, leaving the person feeling ashamed, helpless and isolated.

Physical symptoms of substance abuse and addiction are varied depending on the drug of choice, but the symptoms of the addiction itself are similar. People who are addicted to substances may neglect their responsibilities, take potentially dangerous risks and get into trouble with the law. As their drug use spirals out of control, they will lose interest in activities that used to be enjoyable and continue to take drugs despite knowing the harm it causes.

Substance addicts tend to build up a tolerance to their drug of choice, and get angry when they can't get more of it. Withdrawal symptoms are highly probable when an addict goes without it for too long. Depression, nausea, insomnia, sweating, restlessness, anxiety and shaking are all common withdrawal symptoms.

Psychotherapy can help you to overcome substance addiction by focusing on correcting maladaptive behaviors. Substance abuse is usually a coping mechanism against emotionally overwhelming past events or memories. Substances are often used to provide instant gratification instead of facing certain issues.

Therapists are equipped to help clients deal with addiction recovery through empowerment and helping them set simple short term targets. The first target is sobriety, followed by empowering the client with adaptive skills and finding new coping strategies that deal with the issues that caused the addiction. Substance addiction can be ended, allowing the person to live a healthy, productive life.

If you need a counsellor or psychologist to help you address the effects of substance addiction, you can search the directory below to find a professional with the approach best suited to your situation.

Expressive arts or creativity therapy uses art as a therapy. The end result is not always of great importance in art or creative arts therapy, but rather the process of creation. Imagination is a potent tool for healing, and in artistic therapy, there are many different ways for people to express themselves.

Therapists that use the artistic methods believe that creative expression taps into the imagination, allowing people to examine their emotions, feelings and even the body and thought processes. Some of the models used in creativity therapy, include dance, drama, psychodrama, music, art, horticulture, and writing.

Creative Arts therapy has the ability to foster healing, development and human growth.It can help a person of any age to reclaim their capacity for creative expression about individual and collective experiences in artistic form.

Through creativity expression, an experienced therapist will help you to manage emotional and physical problems, using a range of creative activities. Art therapy provides an avenue for the client to explore emotional conflicts and to increase self-awareness. Expression therapy helps a person to express unspoken and usually unconscious issues, allowing for those issues to be expressed in a safe, nurturing environment.

During therapy, the therapist and the client will move freely between the different models, preferring the intermodal approach to facilitate deeper exploration. It enables the therapist to explore a wide range of emotions through different art forms, from journaling, to painting, dancing, drama, poetry, phototherapy and a range of traditional artforms. Evidence has shown that it is helpful in a range of circumstances, from helping with emotions related to diagnosis of an illness, to dealing with grief or post traumatic stress disorder.

If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who offers creativity therapy to address your emotional issues you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.

A positive self-esteem is an essential tool to help someone function as a productive member of society. Our basic sense of worth determines how well we are able to deal with situations and how well we perform in the family, at school, at work and in life.

Having a healthy self-esteem means that we have a sense of self-worth, self-respect and the ability to find the good in yourself. On the contrary, a negative self image can lead to social anxiety, loneliness, self-criticism, shame and even anger. A person with low self-esteem often feels isolated.

Self-esteem issues are usually created in childhood when negative experiences and poor influences and reactions from caregivers stunt the development of a positive self esteem. Self-esteem can also be affected by abuse, or by being different. A person may be stigmatized for his or her social identity, race, social class, behaviors or appearance.

However, a person's self-esteem can also be challenged during adulthood when one experiences marital issues, financial problems, career glitches or legal challenges.

Therapy can help a person come to terms with self-esteem issues. A therapist will help identify the causes of self-esteem issues and help the individual to regain control over circumstances through goal-directed therapy.

It can help someone with low self-esteem to separate who they are from what they have, or how they look in order to overcome low self-esteem issues. Discovering one's worth is a great way to take control of situations and to learn to feel adequate.

If you are looking for a counsellor or psychologist who offers goal directed therapy to address your self-esteem issues, you may want to search the directory to find a professional whose approach will suit you best.