Improve the quality of your life
Sometimes you just don’t know what to do anymore. You keep coming up against the same old obstacle and realise that you have to do something about it before you can move on.
If you want, I can counsel you in gaining self‑insight, removing (old) blockages, resolving (old) psychological problems, and developing new behaviour and a more satisfying outlook on life.
Through working on yourself, your self‑confidence grows, you gain greater insight into what is important for you in your existence, you take proper responsibility for your life, and you act more maturely in your relationships.
I focus on these themes:
- Insecurity and anxiety
My counselling is mainly about learning to be appropriately assertive about your opinions and ideas. Making contact with yourself and others also plays a key role. You discover where your problems originated, how you cultivate them, and how to take a new approach. You learn to communicate more effectively, to be more autonomous and authentic, with more opportunity to express your emotions.
- Anger and aggression
Speaking your mind, asserting yourself, anger, rage, hitting out. No one can live totally devoid of aggression. Aggression - in all its forms - is part and parcel of our humanity. But overshooting the mark in aggressiveness, having recurrent bouts of anger or rage, not being able to act but in an aggressive way, is too much of a good thing.
You learn to manage your anger. You learn to act in a functional assertive way in which emotions take their rightful place, and unlearn your angry, enraged behaviour. You learn what it is all about that you tend to behave in such an aggressive way, its causes and roots.
- Relationships
How can you form better relationships and deal with differences, conflicts and – in personal relationships – love, intimacy and sexuality? What is your relationship with your wife and children? How do you get on with your boss and your colleagues?
Through my counselling you learn how to come closer to others without sacrificing your individuality. You learn about communication, attachment and bonding, and the function of engaging in – rather than avoiding – discussions and conflicts. You learn to encounter others on a person‑to‑person basis. See also relationship therapy.
- The search for identity and meaning
This group includes themes such as personal growth, aging, loss and mourning, key life questions, being true to yourself, and giving meaning to your life.
This involves questions such as: who am I, and what do I want? I’ve been doubting all my life and I’m sick and tired of that now. Getting old abroad, is this what I want? How do I re‑arrange my life after being diagnosed with breast cancer? Just turned sixty; now what?
It isn’t that you somehow find the ‘right key’ to happiness. What’s more important is that you encounter countless dilemmas in your life that can only be resolved by making choices. I help you in this process.
Clients
My clients come from all over Holland but in particular de Randstad. Many of them, just like me, have connections outside the Netherlands. My experience is that I have something extra to offer them. Our sessions can be conducted either in Dutch or in English.
Other aspects
I work in a playful, dynamic way, using counselling, therapy and training techniques.
Self‑examination, mourning for what once was, gaining insights and learning to deal with emotions — all these work best in the context of one‑on‑one counselling and psychotherapy. Developing new behaviour, though, works often best in a group context. That’s why I prefer to work in combined courses of one‑on‑one sessions and group training. Certain types of problems even lend themselves to correspondence (e‑mail) therapy.
I use techniques including talking about problems, working with character aspects, rational‑emotive therapy (RET), neuro‑linguistic programming (NLP), (cognitive) behavioural therapy, active imagination, Gestalt and transactional analysis (TA). For more information (in Dutch) click here.