Happiness and Positive Psychology

Happiness and Positive Psychology

This article was published on Thursday, September 8th, 2011

Positive Psychology’s primary focus is on what people do right to obtain and maintain optimum happiness (Compton, 2005), by striving to understand and help people develop qualities that lead to greater personal fulfilment. The premise of positive psychology is to promote factors that allow individuals to thrive and flourish by encouraging a change of focus in psychology from a preoccupation with repairing the worst things to a greater emphasis on discovering and building upon positive qualities.

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Counsellors vs Workplace Harassment

 Counsellors vs Workplace Harassment
This article was published on Thursday, July 28th, 2011

To effectively counsel a client who has been the target of workplace harassment it is helpful to have an understanding of relevant legislation. The following is an extract from the Queensland Government Department of Employment and Industrial Relations (it is recommended that counsellors from other states and territories check their relevant legislation).
The QLD Dept of Employment and Industrial Relations, defines workplace harassment as follows:
“Where a person is subjected to behaviour, other than sexual harassment that:

• is repeated, unwelcome and unsolicited
• the person considers the behaviour to be offensive, intimidating, humiliating or threatening
• a reasonable person would consider the behaviour to be offensive, humiliating, intimidating or threatening.”

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Responding to Suicide Risk

 Responding to Suicide Risk
This article was published on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Suicide is a serious health problem. The World Health Organisation estimates that one suicide attempt occurs every three seconds and one completed suicide occurs approximately every 40 seconds resulting in almost one million people dying from suicide each year; a “global” mortality rate of 16 per 100,000 (WHO, 2000, 2010).
In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Each day, approximately 210 Australians attempt to end their life and each year over 2500 will commit suicide. Suicide in Australia kills 8.5 times more people than homicides and 1.5 times more than motor vehicle accidents. Consequently, reducing suicide has become an important international health goal.

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Behaviour and Solution Focused Couple Therapy

 Behaviour and Solution Focused Couple Therapy
 This article was published on Friday, July 15th, 2011
The practice of couple therapy has been encouraged to incorporate a more scientific model of practice and the use of research to inform the style of therapy most appropriate to use (Whiting & Crane, 2003). As a result, the discipline of couple and family counselling is moving to an evidence based focus. A number of theoretical frameworks have attempted to conceptualise dyadic relationships. Some of these theories have become foundations for the interventions that have become common in couple’s therapy today. Some of the models and theories include the strategic model, emotion focused therapy, solution focused therapy, behaviour theory and attachment theory.
In this article we overview two of these approaches.

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Sudden Unemployment – Reactions and Emotions

Sudden Unemployment – Reactions and Emotions 

 This article was published on Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Unfortunately ‘organisational restructuring’ and ‘downsizing’ are common events in today’s workplace. For those individuals who suddenly lose their job, financial pressures can be overwhelming. Most support individuals receive focus on supporting the individual financially. However even under the best conditions where someone has ample savings and decent job prospects, suddenly losing a job is an emotional ride.
The emotional stress which individuals and their families experience is the least thought about effect of unemployment. For many people work is a central component to their identity. When their employment status changes, so too can their self identity. This together with the financial strain can be a very stressful and negative time.

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Career Counselling – A Field of Counselling Specialisation

 Career Counselling – A Field of Counselling Specialisation
This article was published on Thursday, October 15th, 2009

If you are travelling the counsellor training road somewhere between Units 1 and 22, your primary goal right now is probably just to see those C’s filling up your assessment sheet. But what might you be doing once you have your Diploma? You may want to do further study – perhaps take on an advanced study major or even go on to university. Or maybe specialising hasn’t even crossed your mind but it is certainly something worth considering.
Specialisation comes in many forms, such as developing expertise in a favourite technique, working with a particular client group, or helping people with particular issues such as grief and loss, abuse, or relationship problems.

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Domestic Violence – Understanding the Situation

 Domestic Violence – Understanding the Situation
 This article was published on Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, abused or coerced into sex during her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family. The prevalence of domestic violence is difficult to determine for several reasons: it often goes unreported, and there is some ambiguity about what should be included in the definition of domestic violence.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that only 31% of victims of domestic violence and 20% of female victims of sexual assault report the incidence to the police. Living in a domestically violent household is not easy. Some believe that leaving a domestically violent household is even more difficult. But we all have a right to feel safe.

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Symptoms, Causes and Effects of Loneliness

 Symptoms, Causes and Effects of Lonelines
This article was published on Monday, July 9th, 2012

According to Murphy and Kupschik (1992), loneliness is defined as a state in which a person describes experiencing an overwhelming sense of inner emptiness and social isolation. It is, therefore, an emotional state. Loneliness is more than a person feeling that they want to be able to connect on a social level with others – but rather it is a perceived sense of disconnection, rejection and alienation.
The lonely client may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact. Lonely clients often experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness combined with feelings of separation and/ or isolation from the world.
Sometimes people feel lonely because they believe they are different from others or they believe people are indifferent to them. Loneliness and being alone are not the same. For example, a client can be in a group with others and still feel lonely; whereas, they can be alone by themselves and not necessarily feel lonely (Aspel, 2001).

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Suicide: Statistics, Characteristics and Myths

 Suicide: Statistics, Characteristics and Myths
This article was published on Thursday, June 14th, 2012

Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud called suicide “murder turned around 180 degrees”, or more wryly, “a very poor response to a very bad day”. Also called “self-murder” or “self-killing”, suicide is the act of deliberately or intentionally taking one’s own life. It is an attempt to solve a problem of intense emotional pain with impaired problem-solving skills (Kalafat, J. & Underwood, M., n.d.).
Suicidal behaviour is any deliberate action that has potentially life-threatening consequences, such as taking a drug overdose or deliberately crashing a car (Dyer, 2006). Attempted suicide is a potentially self-injurious act committed with at least some intent to die as a result of the act. Individuals of all races, creeds, incomes, and educational levels die by suicide (Kalafat, J. & Underwood, M, n.d.; Clayton, J., n.d.).

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