Life’s problems occur at a number of physical levels: Environmental problems for example destroy ecosystems, inconvenience individuals, and harm cells in bodies. Those levels link up: an environmental problem could ultimately be caused by problems in Presidential brain cells. Good psychological help sees the level of the problem and tackles it at the right level. Family problems, team problems and organisations problems benefit from systemic approaches. Couple problems and relationship problems benefit from interpersonal approaches. Individual problems benefit from cognitive behavioural approaches. Neurological problems benefit from neuropsychological approaches. Even brain cells can benefit from psychology: therapy has been shown to help neurons grow in depleted areas of the brain in people suffering from depression.
Life’s problems can also be more or less tangible. They occur at various levels of abstraction. There’s nothing more tangible than pain, but changing your thinking can reduce pain. There is little less tangible than an existential crisis, but if you’re suicidal, it feels very real. Good psychological help works at the right level of abstraction, at the right time: Sometimes a client isn’t ready to face reality and confront a frightening situation head on. In that case the psychologist needs to give them to time to talk and think about it. Then perhaps the client is worried about even thinking about their problem. If so, some metacognitive approaches are called for: examining a person’s thinking about their thinking.
Training and experience in several approaches is the key to helping clients with their problems. We have that training and experience. Below is a list of life problems that we can help with:
