Counselling

AIM

Sometimes your workforce will struggle to say what is on their minds.  Talking to a Counsellor can help your employees cope with difficulty and make positive change in their lives.

WHY INTRODUCE IT?

Stress is an ever-increasing problem within western society and impacts on the workplace.  This stress can be generated by economic uncertainty or through issues within your employees' personal lives.  You often have to educate your staff so that they understand that stress generated outside of work can manifest itself in work, without being work-generated. Mental health issues are not easily dealt with and can take a multi-disciplinary approach to reach an effective outcome.  If they are not managed appropriately mental health issues can lead to the blame of the individuals problems being transferred to the workplace which in turn leads to inappropriate claims or employment tribunals.  This is where counselling interlinks with the work of Occupational Health Nurses and Occupational Physicians.

WHAT IS IT?

Counselling involves a counsellor seeing your employee in a private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having, distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life, or loss of a sense of direction and purpose.

Counselling is a way of enabling choice or change, or of reducing confusion.  It does not involve giving advice or directing an individual to take a particular course of action.

In the counselling sessions the client can explore various aspects of their life and feelings, and talk about them freely and openly in a way that is rarely possible with friends, family or work colleagues. Bottled-up feelings such as anger, anxiety, grief and embarrassment can become very intense; counselling offers an opportunity to explore these feelings, with the aim of making them easier to understand.

The Counsellor will help the individual to examine in detail the behaviour or situations that are proving troublesome and to find areas where it might be possible to initiate change.

IOH Occupational Health Nurses are trained in basic counselling and our physiotherapists are trained in CBT as well as our Occupational Physicians being equipped and experienced in working with employees with mental health issues.  This is in addition to our ability to provide trained counsellors in your workplace.