Welcome to the AIPC Online Article Library. The library includes over 300 articles focusing on counselling, life effectiveness skills and mental health. We invite you to explore our range of articles by clicking the category links above, or using the drop-down menu on your right. To learn more about AIPC, visit www.aipc.net.au

Latest Articles

What is Psychological Shadow?

AIPC August 19, 2013 Counselling Process, Counselling Theory & Practice

Fittingly, the psychological phenomenon called shadow is so – well, shadowy – that even the best definitions of it are often by default: we define what shadow is not in order to get a sense of what it may be because, being shadow, it is difficult to look at directly. So here goes a try. “Shadow”, meaning our psychological or personal shadow, is comprised of those qualities, impulses, and emotions that we cannot bear for others to see and thus cast into the hidden domain of ourselves. »

Psychological Treatments for Chronic Pain

AIPC August 15, 2013 Counselling Theory & Practice, Therapies & Approaches

Pain can have a profound social and psychological impact on those who suffer from it, and also those who care for them. Some of the psychosocial consequences of living with chronic pain include the tendency for sufferers to become dependent on medication and over-reliant on their families and other caregivers. Those in search of a solution to long-term pain can be inappropriate in their repeated utilisation of health care services, and anxious and fearful even when tended to. Such angst lends itself to withdrawal from friends and family and poor job performance if, indeed, the person feels able to continue working at all. »

Depression in Older Adults: What Does It Look Like?

AIPC August 2, 2013 Anxiety / Depression, Mental Health Issues

There are 31 million Americans 65 years or older, and five million of them (just over 16 percent) have depression (Boswell & Stoudemire, 1996). In Australia, one million people currently suffer from depression, and 14 percent will have it at some point in their lives (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008). There is some debate as to whether the prevalence of depression increases or decreases with age, with a recent report suggesting that there are fewer diagnoses of depression in older people as the rates are considerably lower than for younger people. However, when broader measures are used which do not exclude from diagnosing contextual conditions more prevalent in older people – such as bereavement or dementia – the prevalence among community-dwelling elders is reported to be betwee... »

What Does Resilience Look Like?

AIPC July 31, 2013 Counselling Theory & Practice, Effectiveness Skills, Life Coping Skills, Social Support

As a counsellor or other mental health professional, of course you help your clients deal with difficult life events when they come to your therapy rooms. But how do you boost their capacity to prevail over adversity when they are not with you? Most of the time when mental health professionals talk about resilience, they are referring to psychological hardiness, primarily, and physical toughness secondarily. Yet the term “resilience” was first used in the physical sciences to describe the behaviour of a spring (Plodinec, 2009). In fact, the word “resilience” is derived from the Latin resalire, to spring back. In the 1970s and 1980s, the term began to be co-opted by ecological and psychological communities. »

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Case Studies

A Case Using Brief Psychodynamic Therapy

AIPC November 27, 2014

Wendy is a 54 year old woman who has two adult children and has been married for twenty-nine years. Her husband, Steve, has recently and unexpectedly informed her that he no longer loves her and that he wants a divorce. Wendy was shocked to hear this...

A Case of Lost Direction

AIPC November 25, 2014

Jenny has come to counselling due to strong feelings of dissatisfaction with her life. She is 48 years old, un...

Case Study: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

AIPC June 7, 2013

Marian, a psychologist who specialised in anxiety disorders, closed the file and put it into the filing cabine...

Communication

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare meticulously for the interview, but somehow, it doesn’t go well. The interviewers don’t seem to warm to you, and you know in your heart that y...

Building Shame Resilience in Clients

AIPC June 1, 2018

Jungian analysts have called it the “swampland of the soul”. Other psychotherapy writers have observed how it ...

Strategies for Helping Families to Enhance Resilience

AIPC July 19, 2017

If you are supporting a family in transition, you may perceive huge differences between them and the character...

Counselling Theory & Practice

Men and Emotions: From Repression to Expression

AIPC August 19, 2019

In our previous article (read it here), we asked why men do not seem to express emotion as easily as women do. Was there some pathology, or should we just put the differences down to male-female tendencies? We identified Dr Ron Levant’s notion of “no...

Men, Emotions and Alexithymia

AIPC July 30, 2019

She sends him little “I love you” texts during the day, and wonders why he doesn’t even whisper the three magi...

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare me...

Life Coping Skills

The Fine Art of Compassion

AIPC May 15, 2019

Imagine this scenario: you are keen to get a particular job and an opportunity for it comes up. You prepare meticulously for the interview, but somehow, it doesn’t go well. The interviewers don’t seem to warm to you, and you know in your heart that y...

The Benefits of Intentional Daydreaming

AIPC January 23, 2019

Your fitness tracker reminds you to walk away from your computer every hour to get needed movement – and then ...

Procrastination: What Your Client Needs to Know

AIPC October 24, 2018

95% of us procrastinate (Steel, 2010) – accruing negative consequences – despite having recognised for 500 yea...