Vision of counselling which Verity embraces:
1. Walk with clients with genuine, trust and respect
Verity considers the life situations of clients to be primarily growth or life-stage challenges rather than pathological conditions. As advocated by Person-Centered Therapy, Verity adopts the attitudes of genuine, unconditional positive regard, and empathic understanding to build trusting and respectful relationships with clients, with aim of fostering their inner potential so they may overcome various challenges in life.
2. Provide tailor-made therapy programs
Verity performs technical eclecticism to select and integrate the essence of different kinds of therapies, including Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Mindfulness skills and Moment by Moment Reconnecting Marriage and Family Therapy, to meet the unique need of each individual/couple/family and their specific presenting issues in our pluralistic society.
In addition, in accordance with the client’s age, preferences and conditions, Verity also incorporates art, music and play activities into her therapy programs. The goal here is to help clients express their inner feelings and thus improve treatment progress and results.
Verity has received years of continual professional training in different counselling approaches. During counselling process, Verity not only focus on relieving psychological symptoms or addressing psychological or relationship issues, but also seeks to understand the underlying dynamics and meanings hidden behind these symptoms and problems. She had been trained first-hand by the first generation of Chinese psychotherapy trainers, including:
．Ms. Selina Leung Ho Chiu-Man (Emotion-Focused Therapy)
．Dr. Wong Tat-Ying (Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy)
．Ms. Lotte Lau Suet-Ha (Child-Centered Play Therapy)
．Dr. Danny Yeung Siu-Chee (Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy)
Recently, Verity has also received training in Moment by Moment Reconnecting Marriage & Family Therapy conducted by Ms. Anita Fok Yul-Lin, who is renowned for integrating various personal, marriage and family therapy methods from both Chinese and Western traditions.
These trainings enable Verity to perform well in counselling skills of evidence-based therapies as well as to meet the cultural need of our Chinese community.
3. Promote holistic healthy life development
The World Health Organization’s survey on wellness assess people’s holistic health status based on five categories: physical, psychological, spiritual, social, economic and occupational conditions. Through life experiences, background in allied health and professional training in counselling, Verity deeply understands that these five factors are interrelated and account for well-being of people. Therefore, Verity aspires to promote holistic wellness through professional counseling and mental health related works in cooperation with different parties.
4. Facilitate harmonious marriage and family relationships
A good relationship can help to establish and complete the self while only a healthy and mature self can promote a harmonious and fulfilling relationship. Our relationships and ego are subtly inter-correlated and intertwined, and we cannot overlook either. With aim of promoting the healthy growth of both marital parties, Verity seeks to repair and strengthen marital relationships by assisting couples to rebuild and establish the meaning of the relationship, improving vitality in intimacy, facilitating motivation in connection between couples, as well as clarifying and enhancing both parties’ commitment to the relationship. Developing the couples’ abilities to communicate and interact with self and each other is also essential.
As the two main factors which help prevent mental health problems are emotional management and family environment, Verity has taught various parental emotional health and parenting education courses in recent years, with hopes of fostering better parent-child relationships by teaching parents to love and parent kids effectively.
Courses she taught include “Child-centered Parenting” and “Understanding hearts of kids”. Through the course “Playing for a Better Future”, she fosters parents to grasp the essence of child-centered play therapy, and encourages parents to allot a special parent-child play time for half an hour per week. This helps parents understand their child’s inner world, thereby allowing them to respond effectively to his/her feelings, while enhancing the child’s self-esteem, self-control and sense of responsibility.
The American Counseling Association (ACA), the world's largest association of professional counselors, defines counseling as “a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.”
