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The Cycle of Domestic Violence

There has been a great deal of research which indicates that there are patterns to violence in abusive relationships and is often referred to as “the cycle of violence”. It has been useful for many women in violent relationships to notice these patterns in order to predict attacks, however it is important to note that […]

Why do Domestic Violence Victims Stay?

Fear is the main reason abused individuals do not seek help or tell anyone about the violence or abused in a relationship. Sometimes this fear is about coping alone if and when they leave and is heightened in cases where the person is either physically or financially dependent on their partner. People with disabilities there […]

A Case of Stressful Life Change

Author: Jane Barry A précis of the sessions is as follows. For ease of writing the Professional Counsellor is abbreviated to “C”. In the first session, “C” asked some open questions to prompt Mary to start discussing her dilemmas. Mary was able to convey the events leading up to her problems clearly, although was reduced […]

Domestic Violence: Impact on Children

Estimates are that more than 3.3 million children are exposed to physical or verbal abuse each year. Children may directly observe domestic violence or they may be aware of it indirectly. They may be in another room when it takes place, be woken during the night and hear the violence, or see bruising or damaged […]

Institute Inbrief x50

In 2003 we created our first online newsletter, Institute Inbrief. It was a great way to keep in touch with our students, whilst providing articles, news, updates and other valuable information to anyone interested in the counselling industry. What started as a shy experiment became a priority task for our education team and since then […]

Myths About Domestic Violence

In this post we debunk common myths about domestic violence. 1. Domestic violence is rare Although statistics on domestic violence is not exact, it’s clear that millions of women, children and even men are abused physically by family members and other people close to them. 2. Domestic violence is only seen in lower socio-economic families […]

Types of Domestic Violence

You do not have to be physically hurt to be abused, nor is it ever too late to seek assistance. This means that domestic violence can be categorised into several forms. Let’s take a look at the different types of domestic violence. Physical Abuse Physical abuse includes direct harm against a person, their child, pet […]

Coping with Domestic Violence

Around the world at least one woman in every three has been beaten, abused or coerced into sex into 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 […]

Counselling Case Study: Domestic Violence

The client, Gary, called to make his first appointment and said he was persuaded by “a mate” to attend counselling to control his anger. In short Gary was a perpetrator of physical abuse against his intimate female partner, Julie, who is 22 years of age. The couple have no children but his partner has recently […]

A Case of Loss and Grief

Jim had come to counselling to seek help with dealing with the sale of his late mother’s estate. He was experiencing a lot of anger with the issue and also with his brother, Frank, who was joint inheritor. Frank was facing bankruptcy and needed the proceeds of the sale of the family home to save […]

Counselling Case Study: Working with Grief

Grief is a complex and individual process. There are a number of well documented stages to the grief process such as numbness, guilt, despair, panic and acceptance to name a few. The order in which these stages are experienced and the intensity and duration of each stage will be different for each individual. It is […]

Stress at Work

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” (Natalie Goldberg) Stress in the workplace is common and caused by many different factors and issues. Many problems may never be fully resolved and the amount of stress a person experiences is often determined by whether or not they can accept that some […]

Handy Tools for Combating Stress

“When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan’s Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out […]