Individual Personal Counselling
Individual personal counselling involves a relationship between an individual client and a personal counsellor. Through ongoing conversations, this relationship fosters a safe place where individuals can identify and explore issues that may be causing distress and/or interruptions in their academic and/or personal lives. This collaborative process can work to create new ways of seeing oneself, highlight one’s existing strengths and improve problem-solving strategies. One of the advantages of seeing a counsellor on an on-going basis is that you have the opportunity to form a respectful, working alliance which many have found to be very helpful to the success of a counselling encounter. A typical session lasts approximately 50 minutes. There is usually a week or two between counselling sessions.
The client’s role is to put forward any concerns and be as open and honest as possible. The counsellor’s role is to listen carefully and highlight patterns of thinking and responding and to invite clients to consider improved ways of seeing and dealing with their situation.
The frequency of sessions may range from weekly to monthly (or longer). Rapid progress is often achieved with this approach.
Couples Counselling
From time to time, those who access our services are facing challenges in their personal relationships. Couples counselling may serve as a helpful tool for addressing these issues. As in individual counselling, the counsellor’s role is to help the couple identify problem areas and collaborate with the couple on making useful changes. Please note that, due to the demand on our services, we cannot provide both individual counselling as well as couple counselling to the same student at the same time.
Crisis Intervention
Our crisis services are designed to assist individuals who may be experiencing life-threatening circumstances, current or recent traumatic crises or severe psychological difficulties. These services are not designed to deal with immediate safety issues.
In the event that there are immediate concerns about or threats to someone’s safety – whether that be your own safety or the safety of someone else – call 911 to request that they attend immediately.
Examples of crises that CCS may be able to help with include but are not limited to:
- Suicidal thoughts.
- Acute emotional distress of an overwhelming nature.
- Thoughts about harming another person.
- Recent assault or abuse.
- Concern about your own safety.
- Knowledge of another person being abused or assaulted.
- Hallucinations and delusions.
- Recent death of a loved one.
- Witnessing or experiencing a traumatic event.
Confidentiality
We hold all aspects of clients’ involvement with CCS in utmost confidence. Personally identifiable information regarding individuals using our services is not discussed with outside parties (e.g. parents or partners) without prior written consent of the client. Receptionists and other staff do not acknowledge to anyone making such inquiries whether or not an individual is a client of CCS. Client records are maintained for 5 years after the date of the last contact and are then destroyed.
Note: Counsellors are ethically and/or legally allowed or required to disclose confidential information to the appropriate authorities under certain circumstances. See our privacy statement for further information.
Cancellation Policy
Clayton Counselling Services tries to meet the needs of all clients. As the year progresses, there is an increasing demand for our services and, consequently, waiting lists rapidly develop. In order to accommodate many individuals, we need to ensure that every available appointment spot is used. Therefore, we request that clients keep their appointments as scheduled.
Unless warranted by exceptional circumstances, if a client misses two intake appointments or two individual counselling appointment without notifying us at least 24 hours prior to the scheduled appointment time, s/he will not be allowed to book another appointment . Also, clients repeatedly cancelling individual counselling sessions may be refused additional services. However, CCS reserves the right to make decisions about services on a case by case basis, taking clinical information into account.