Counselling services
Counselling services are offered in Centurion and Pretoria East. Counselling services should not merely be seen as relevant for when something goes wrong. It should also, and ideally in the first instance, be seen as a place of optimal development. I offer a range of services that have to do with optimal development of individuals, families, groups/teams, and organisations.
Counselling services in Centurion (Pierre van Ryneveld) and Pretoria East area (particularly Waterkloof Glen). Find the contact information towards the bottom of the page.
On request and by default for some services I also travel. Terms and conditions apply but it is possible to arrange counselling at a different place over x-mornings.
Counselling services can also be offered online and through various technological means. More
here.
More on family therapy and types of counselling
I offer specialist counselling services that as a family therapist covers a number of areas. Family therapists are comfortable working with the entire family (as a family or as individuals or relationships within the family). They believe that the solutions in life are to found within relationships and that what people typically experience as problems is a result of relationship dynamics rather than an inherent lack of any one member.
Areas of counselling
The areas that I cover as a family therapist include:
- Family therapy (separately or collectively)
- Couples-/ or relationship counselling
- Children’s therapy
- Sibling rivalry
- Teenage counselling
- Divorce counselling (Before, During, After)
- (Re)constituted families
- Life cycle counselling (themes related to how we manage emotional and other developmental stages or transitions from childhood to our senior years)
- Pre-marital preparation
- Parental guidance
- Parent-child reunification (such as against the backdrop of parental alienation and divorce)
- Anxiety and depression
- Themes related to identity
- Themes related to gender
- Themes related to power, abuse of power, and self empowerment
- Illness, grief, bereavement and loss
- Spiritual accompaniment
- Critical decision-making (See referral and recommendation consulting)
Referral and recommendation consulting
It is a bit of an art to get to the right people and for the right reasons. On my part these conversations require both a counselling and coaching background. Here I offer:
- Pre-divorce, pre-legal, and pre-mediation conversations
(‘I am considering to divorce’)
- Change of occupation conversations (‘I am considering to quit by job’)
- Being let go (‘I might be let go’ Or from the other side ‘We are restructuring and I might have to let go a number of employees)
- Any other critical decision-making conversations
Often people do not lend enough gravity to decisions such as ‘should I divorce’ or ‘should I change my job.’
The purpose of these conversations are not for me to tell you what you should do! Let’s take divorce as an example for why these professional conversations are important. The moment a person sees a lawyer or commits to mediation they are immediately part of a process where the end result is divorce. Psychological and emotional polarisation has already started to tear you down as a couple and as a person. It becomes a current that you find yourself in wherein it is difficult to change direction once you are in that current. If a person decides that they want a different outcome they would have spent a great deal of money and chances are that they are already part of an adversarial system. Mediation is intended to neutralise an adversarial system but critical conversations should take place even before that.
With critical conversations we give the stage or decision a person has to make the necessary gravity and reflection. I help you by exploring the decision and consequences in a multi-layered way. We go through as many options as possible. Then three things happen: 1) If appropriate I can then refer you to a specific person based on your situation; 2) We consider who (what professional) should be involved in the process; 3) We then look at whether it is at all necessary for me to be part of that process or maybe to just offer basic support during the unfolding of the process.
Other aspects to take note of
Approach
- The use of narrative therapeutic approaches (in other words using clients’ stories and experiences as the basis and medium for conversations and outcomes)
- Where applicable depending on the client the use of music or any other form of arts or crafts within a narrative approach
- Openness to dealing with religious or spiritual themes on request by the client or as it presents itself in a natural way
- A collaborative approach wherein we decide how much structure will be appropriate bearing in mind that it might also have to change at different times
Fees
There are different fee structures based on how we decide to work together as also necessitated by offering different services. Please ask for a fees schedule via email.
Contact details
Immediate diary checking is the easiest, fastest and most convenient way to make an appointment. This
link will take you to a page to make a diary request
consult[AT]elmopienaar[DOT]com
082 410 7645 (Or you are welcome to request me to phone you. Leave your name and number via the contact/connect tab)
