People see a counsellor for many reasons. You may be able to identify a specific problem that keeps you awake at night, or makes you anxious. You may not know what exactly is bothering you only that you are finding it hard to cope. You may feel like you can’t go to school, can’t meet your friends, or find it hard to understand your feelings or relationships. You might be sad, lonely, anxious, depressed. So, you see there are many reasons why you might need to talk to someone and try to work out just what is happening for you.

When it feels like parents or friends can’t be there for you, a counsellor can be that objective person standing back and helping you to look at the situation you are in without judging, blaming or telling you what to do.

You could get a recommendation from someone who has been in therapy themselves. Or you could go to the website of a recognised organisation such as Irish Association of Humanistic & Integrative Psychotherapists, (IAHIP) and select someone in your area. Alternatively, your GP may recommend someone to you. Whichever method you choose you remain in charge of whether you go to that person or not. When you do meet someone you should be comfortable working with them.

Many people use the terms interchangeably but there is a difference in the service that the counsellor and the psychotherapist provides. Many of us encounter problems throughout our lives that cause us anguish or distress and could interfere with the how we live our lives. For example, an event like a death, relationship breakdown, being bullied etc., can have a huge impact on our lives and we may struggle to come to terms with the impact and how we respond to it. We may need the help of an objective professional to work through specific issues and a counsellor is invaluable at these times.

A Psychotherapist can also help you with these issues and can work at a much deeper level where the issue may not be in your conscious awareness. The Psychotherapist works with the unconscious, helping you to understand why you may feel a certain way, or why you respond to a situation in a particular way. Sometimes much of our distress is buried in our past history and we need help to untangle the threads. The psychotherapist will help you to reflect and work through issues which may stem from our early life so that you get a better understanding of who you are in the world and make choices as you go through your life.

In general the sessions are between 50 minutes to one hour.

It could be weekly or fortnightly, whatever is appropriate at a particular time or situation.

Your counsellor will not promise to ‘fix’ you. What the counsellor will do is help you to understand what is going on for you and work towards finding a resolution that suits you.

Your counsellor will discuss confidentiality with you at the first session. In general you may discuss whatever is on your mind without fear of this being disclosed to anyone without your approval. However, if the counsellor feels that you or any other person, particularly a child, is in danger they have an obligation to put your safety and the safety of others first and are required to break confidentiality.

It is necessary, particularly in the early sessions and at times throughout your attendance, for your parents to be included in at least some of your sessions. Your parents have a lot of information about your early life that would be useful for your counsellor to be aware of so to have them at the early sessions would be important. They are most likely a big part of the solution to your issues and if this emerges in the work then it is important that they are present. Sometimes parents come to all sessions. We do ask parents to be available to join us in the sessions if we think it would be useful.

In general this is a private relationship between your counsellor and yourself. However, if you feel that an intervention with the school would help, then our counsellors are happy to engage with your school.

Each individual session costs €80.00, or as agreed with your therapist. This includes individual, parent and family sessions.

If you make an appointment and cancel, then the full fee is chargeable if we cannot rearrange a time that suits us both. This may not always be possible.

There is no charge if the cancellation is made at least 72 hours prior to the appointment.

Our email address is:info@lapcc.ie.
You can contact Anne on 087-2380879 or Jennifer on 086-8599328.

All of our therapists hold a MSc. in Adolescent Psychotherapy, and each holds further post grads/diplomas in psychotherapy reflective of their core training. All of our therapists are accredited with recognized accrediting bodies such as IAHIP and IACP. A number of our therapists are supervisor’s accredited with either IAHIP or IACP and hold professional diploma’s in Supervision.