My view of counselling is that it is for everybody and that there is no stigma attached. It is an exploration of how you tick. Through this journey,  you can uncover and transform unhelpful patterns. You can learn to respond rather than react defensively. Having a therapist means that your mind has an external ally who you can explore with. 

Ever since I have been introduced to Internal Family Systems, I use it in all my individual therapy sessions. It is the most wonderful and optimistic and growth oriented therapy modality out there, in my opinion. It is also a way of life, not limited to therapy, as you can learn to use it on yourself. The premise of IFS is that our psyches are made up of multiple parts. Parts of you that get you up in the morning, do the work, parts that worry and parts that hold shame, among many others. Some parts were 'exiled', mostly in our childhoods, because the part was holding what was not accepted by your parents or the wider society. Other parts protect those exiles from being stirred. In IFS therapy, we learn to befriend all our parts and realize that they all have good intentions. 

In counselling, I use a variety of approaches based on empathy and mindfulness. Initially, I am also interested in your life's circumstances: maybe you don't get a good night's sleep, so we have to address that first and foremost. Maybe your lifestyle doesn't serve you. I am interested in your life story but I am even more interested to connect with what emotions are underneath the stories. The stories we tell ourselves skew our reality and cause us to be more limited than we have to be. My Buddhist teacher Tsoknyi Rinpoche puts this very well. Check out here: ​https://www.fullybeing.org/course/handshake/. 

Through  my 5 decades of life, my view and stance have been infused by these approaches (click on the links for more information):

Mindfulness, Transactional Analysis, Jungian Analysis, Narrative Therapy (Michael White), client-centred therapy (Roger), Focusing (Eugene Gendlin), Feeding your demons, embodiment, Non-violent Communication (Marshall Rosenberg), trauma-informed therapy, attachment-based therapy, Emotional-focused Therapy (Sue Johnson). My understanding of the human condition is mostly based on a Buddhist perspective of self-responsibility and self-transformation. 

I am currently studying Internal Family Systems, and have seen amazing results with that approach. See here for more information.