Links to descriptions of my areas of expertise:

Psychotherapy for Individuals
Marriage and Couples’ Counselling
Health Counselling

Individual Psychotherapy – Making Changes

Individual Counselling is a process in which an individual assesses, with professional help, his or her beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors; identifies areas in need of change; and actually carries out the changes. Individual Psychotherapy focuses on the individual. In other words, the individual is the client. There is one person who has a problem and, as a result, is experiencing some level of distress. The individual alone is the ‘symptom bearer’. The goal of individual psychotherapy is to find symptom relief by exploring the individual’s unconscious to discover whatever it is that keeps them stuck in their problematic situation. In order to find solutions it is often helpful, through Individual Counselling, to explore the individual’s past to better understand the origin of their problem. It is generally a longer term treatment which focuses more on gaining insight into chronic physical and emotional problems. It focuses on the individual's thought process and way of being in the world rather than specific problems, except as examples of patterns, since, pattern changes lead to many problems “spontaneously” resolving.

Comparing to Individual Psychotherapy, Individual Counselling is focused on the real-world problems that the individual is dealing with and less on long-term changes in the individual's inner emotional states, emotional changes, or character pattern behavior. Technically speaking, ‘individual counsellor’ means ‘individual advisor’. It involves two people working together to solve a problem, and may involve advice giving. Spiritual guidance is a type of Individual Counselling. But Ingrid, although she may offer advice, she will not base it upon any spiritual dogma; rather upon the pragmatics of the facts, the soul-feelings of the person themselves.  In the context of mental health, Individual Counselling is generally used to denote a relatively brief treatment that is focused most upon behavior. It often targets a particular symptom or problematic situation and offers suggestions and advice for dealing with it.

Ingrid will help a person by means of both Individual Psychotherapy and Individual Counselling. As noted in other pages in my psychotherapy and counselling in Toronto website, in actual practice there may be quite a bit of overlap between the two. However, psychotherapy requires a different depth understanding compared with counselling. While a psychotherapist may often be qualified to provide life-skills counselling, a counselor will often not possess the necessary training and skills to provide Individual Psychotherapy.

Counselling is considered an exchange of opinions and ideas to effectively problem solve an individual’s daily living issues associated with his or her emotional, cognitive, or behavioral problems.

Individual Psychotherapy is generally undertaken to gain self-knowledge. Most people come to one-on-one psychotherapy because defenses which have served them in the past are no longer working or useful. This face-to-face relationship, can to help a client to learn or acquire new skills, especially freedom from reactivity, access to a more calm, more wise internal self, together with clearer viewpoints which will enable them to better cope with, and adjust to, life situations. The focus is to help a person reach maximum fulfillment or potential, and to become more fully functioning as a person.

Further comparing, Individual Counselling primarily deals with reality situations versus the unconscious past focus of psychotherapy. Secondly counselling has been described as helping one to develop competencies in coping with life situations where as psychotherapy is a reorganization of one's whole personality. It is said that that the individual counsellor deals with life adjustment problems while the individual psychotherapist deals with past-unresolved issues, most often from the family of origin.

 

OUR STRENGTHS, AND OTHER’S STRENGTHS

Many of the problems we face seem to be ours and ours alone. How often have you looked at a boss, co-worker, friend, or even a member of your family and asked yourself ‘Why don't they have the same problem I do?’ ‘What are they doing differently?’

Unfortunately, part of the problem lies in the questions themselves. We are all unique, with different strengths, weaknesses and experiences that help shape who we are. A slightly better question you might ask is ‘Why don't things seem to work out for me?’ This is acceptable if there's no self-blame in the question and it is asked with introspection. It doesn't do us any good to blame ourselves – we always have done the best we could (or thought at the time we could!). And people demand that we “take responsibility”! How could we have done better when we knew less than now, or our repeated efforts seem to cause the same problem over and over?

Ingrid Dresher, through Individual Psychotherapy, can help you develop the insight that will enable you to “take responsibility”! When you better understand fundamentals of your own nature, seeing your patterns more clearly, recognize you goals and possibilities, then you can find change is possible! Then you can feel empowered, and ready to improve your life by asking key questions, such as ‘What do I need to do differently to get the life, or the love, that I want?’ ‘What do I need to change?’

Ingrid Dresher, a psychotherapist in Toronto, can help you, though Individual Psychotherapy and Individual Counselling, to find your inner strengths, compassion for yourself and others, and your spiritual self, from which you can find your inner wisdom, which is the heritage of our species. Her years of experience in psychotherapy and counseling, and her own commitment to a path of spiritual growth, may help you to find your inner self, and to move towards your own path of happiness and contentment