Q : What is psychotherapy?

 

Psychotherapy is the use of psychological methods to help a person to overcome their problems in desired ways. It is a collaborative treatment based on the relationship between a client and psychologist. Grounded in a dialogue, it provides a supportive environment that allows you to talk openly with someone who’s objective, neutral and non - judgemental.

You and your psychologist will work together to identify and change the thought and behaviour patterns that are keeping you from feeling your best.

Psychotherapy sessions aims to improve your well being and mental health, to resolve or mitigate troublesome thoughts, behavior, beliefs, compulsions or emotions and to improve relationship and social skills.

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Q : What is the difference between psychotherapy and counselling?

 

Psychotherapy is not similar to counselling, although the two can overlap. Counselling is dialogue session that involves a trained psychologist to listen to you and helping you find ways to deal with your stress and emotional issues based on your current situation.

Psychotherapy is deeper and address the underlying causes of the problem. It is more long term than counselling and focuses on a broader range of mental health conditions such as major depressive disorder, addictions, obsessive compulsion disorders, and other conditions associated with traumatic events or suicidal tendencies. 

Part of psychotherapy approaches involves addressing maladaptive schemas, belief and coping strategies that developed way back in childhood. It involves implementation of scientifically validated assessments and techniques - to help people develop healthier skills to address their challenges and to live a happy lifestyle.

 

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Q: What is the main goal of psychotherapy?

 

The primary goals of psychotherapy is to know yourself better, to alleviate any of your emotional pain or confusions, address any of the dysfunctional thoughts and behaviors and finally to establish more effective coping mechanism in order to enlarge your mental potential, develop healthy skills and bring contentment and inner happiness to yourself.

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Q : Does psychotherapy actually work?

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Totally yes. A tremendous amount of research demonstrates the effectiveness of psychotherapy.

In one large study of 2,400 people receiving psychotherapy once a week, about 50% showed significant improvement after 2 months, and 75% after 6 months.

 

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Q : How long is a typical therapy session?

 

A standard therapy session will last approximately 50 minutes, which is referred as “therapeutic hour”.

This is standard practice, although at The Happiness Project, we do extend some of the sessions up to 90 minutes with additional charges, depending on the severity of client’s situations.

 

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Q : How do I know if I need to see a therapist?

 

The American Psychological Association suggests considering therapy when something causes distress and interferes with some part of life, particularly when you find yourself :​

• thinking/coping with any issues that take up at least an hour each day

• feel that the issue causes embarrassment or makes you want to avoid others

• the issue has caused your quality of life to decrease

• the issue has negatively affected your school / work life, or your relationship

• making changes in your life / or developed habits to cope with the issue

• feeling overwhelmed, fatigue, disappropriate rage, anger or resentment, hopelessness, apathy, anxious and intrusive thoughts or social withdrawal.

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Q : Why should I attend a therapy session?

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Therapy can offer a safe place to talk through your life challenges such as trauma, grief, breakups, parenting difficulties, family struggles, relationship problem and many more. When any types of mental health or emotional concerns affects your daily life and functions, therapy serves you best in helping you to learn about what you’re feeling, why you’re feeling so and how to cope with such feeling.​

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Q : What I need to understand about the payment structures?

 

All fees are payable at the end of therapeutic session. You will be informed on any special offers / packages session charges during your first session with us. If anytime you have questions / concerns about this, please feel free to discuss this, as they may affect the progress of therapy. The emphasis here is to be open and honest.

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Q : What I need to understand about rescheduling?

 

We understand emergency may arise which can make it difficult for you to come to your regularly scheduled appointment. If the time is available, we will schedule another appointment within the week and you will not be charged for the missed session. Do kindly notify us 24hours in advance if you would like to reschedule your session.

 

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Q : Should I worry about the confidentiality of our session?

 

All communications are confidential. You own the information that you share to us, and as part of our professional code of ethics, we cannot give that information to anyone else without your expressed written permission, however there are certain exceptions.

Those exceptions are : you are expressing imminent danger / abuse to your ownself or to others.

In this case, it is required by law that we would need to inform this to a relative, a designated friend or the authorities of those circumstances.