Janina Malyon Counselling

A counselling service for young people and adults in Maidstone, Kent.

12 years supporting students in schools & colleges

Registered member MBACP (Accred)

I am a Humanistic Counsellor, with the Person-Centred approach forming the bedrock of my practice, drawing upon the theories and techniques of Gestalt and Transactional Analysis where appropriate. In line with the Person-Centred account, I believe that each individual has worth and is essentially good. With this I believe that all behaviour, no matter how destructive to self or others, is at its core, an attempt to survive and grow as best we can in whatever conditions we find ourselves in.

As we move through and experience life, expectations and pressures can be imposed upon us by significant others and we begin to adapt our behaviour and steer away from our true self, to elicit approval and avoid judgement. We might deny, suppress, interrupt, reprimand and ignore our emotions and effectively over time we can begin to lose touch with our true self.  The aim of my approach is to raise client awareness of who and how they really are.

I believe that our childhood experiences are significant to how we approach our lives in later years and therefore exploration of client memories and their personal timeline can uncover clues to present day tension. Time spent exploring how early relationships might be influencing our behaviour can support clients to move away from or update outdated survival strategy behaviours and beliefs that are no longer helpful.

For clients for whom words do not come easy or to access information on the edge of our awareness, I might invite more creative methods such as use of stones, drawings, photographs, song lyrics, music, poems, images and symbols. Creative methods can offer powerful and innovative ways of exploring a situation, offering an abstract way to access inner states, meaning and feelings.