Strategic Counselling

A therapist working from a strategic counselling perspective, like that of the Human Givens approach, will seek to help their client to quickly deal with their problems, identify solutions, set and agree therapy goals and design interventions to facilitate fast, effective change, that suit the client and meet their needs.

The therapist will help the client became aware, and begin to engage all of the clients resources in the interventions. The client may be helped to develop and acquire new resources, but more often than not, the client simply needs to recognise and engage their already existing, perhaps forgotten resources.

During this process the confident therapist will solid and supportive in a crises or emergency, or when the client is simply feeling a little low on morale – making healing changes can initially be hard work – and as Jay Harley’s First Law states “Whenever a person makes, others will act to minimise that change”. Very often those around the client, who might often encourage the need for change, find that they have to adapt as well to the clients changes and healing. That may be a surprise and a difficulty for the client’s family/partners too.

The strategic counsellor will recognise that and will be willing to engage and support the dynamic nature of changing relationships, examining the responses to the interventions and changes and adapting them to the clients, possibly developing and changing, goals. The effective therapist is comfortable about working with the responses of those closest to the client, if necessary, with the client’s permission working directly with their family, friends and partners.

By constantly examining the outcomes of the therapy, the therapist can adapt the interventions, especially if they have a breadth and width of experience and training that enables them to use tools that match both the client’s needs and current circumstances.

Strategic counselling is a dynamic, problem focused and effective approach.