The Community Counselling programme is designed to provide short-term counselling support for individual identified issues and/or addiction counselling.
Evidence based practice is incorporated into all models of counselling used. Counselling is conducted mainly from a cognitive behavioural approach and includes some dialectical behaviour therapy models.
Cognitive therapy seeks to help the patient overcome difficulties by identifying and changing dysfunctional thinking, behaviour, and emotional responses. This involves helping clients develop skills for modifying beliefs, identifying distorted thinking, relating to others in different ways, and changing behaviours. Treatment is based on collaboration between client and therapist and on testing beliefs. Therapy may consist of testing the assumptions which one makes and identifying how certain of one's usually unquestioned thoughts are distorted, unrealistic and unhelpful. Once those thoughts have been challenged, one's feelings about the subject matter of those thoughts are more easily subject to change.
Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a system of therapy that combines standard cognitive-behavioural techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice. Research indicates that DBT is also effective in treating clients who present varied symptoms and behaviours associated with spectrum mood disorders, including self-injury. Recent work suggests its effectiveness with sexual abuse survivors and chemical dependency.