Rekindle Counselling Ltd

Our offices were damaged in the September quakes of 2010 and the premises we were about to move into in 2011 were damaged in the February 2011 quakes. Our director’s home was also damaged in the February quakes, so the business has been in limbo for some months.

We have now decided to move our counselling offices to Wellington in early 2012. We will be recommencing our services in late February and will be back to work on this website and other online projects soon.

We look forward to getting back into the swing of this site, our counselling in-person and even looking forward to online and telephone counselling services in the new year.

[We received the following notice as an unsolicited email, but have put it here in case any of our site visitors might be interested in attending this event. We do not necessarily endorse the content.]

‘An Introduction to Child Centered Play Therapy’

A 2-day Workshop

Date: 17,18,19 February 2011

Venue: The Nest Kahikatea Drive, Hamilton

Course Presenters: Judi Jacobsen MNZAC (play therapist, counsellor) & Megan Longman MNZASW (play therapist, social worker)

Child Centered Play Therapy

The play therapy model presented at the workshop is Child Centered Play Therapy (CCPT). In CCPT, there is an underlying belief in and trust of the inner person of the child and their innate capacity to strive towards growth and maturity. The Child Centered Play Therapist is concerned with developing the kind of relationship that facilitates inner emotional growth and children’s belief in themselves. CCPT is an attitude, a philosophy, and a way of being with children rather than a way of doing something to or for children (The Art of Relationship, Garry Landreth, 2002). Play is the natural world of a child, and in their play a child can express their thoughts and feelings and come to an understanding of their world. Within the unique relationship that is developed between the child and therapist, the child learns to value and respect themselves; to recognise their strengths, values and abilities; and to trust in their own ability to make decisions which are based on an internal wisdom and not on external pressures.

‘An Introduction to Child Centered Play Therapy’ will be of interest to counsellors, social workers, teachers, early childhood educators, psychotherapists, psychologists, creative art therapists, and others who work with children, as well as students who are training in these areas.

Content of Workshop

The philosophy and principles of CCPT

What is CCPT, who it can help, and how it can help

The process of building a relationship with a child

Therapeutic language that shows a true belief in the person of the child: The four healing messages – I am here, I hear you, I understand and I care

Noticing, listening, acknowledging, and therapeutic limit setting

Following the child’s lead

Returning responsibility to the child

Facilitating the development of children’s strengths

Building a child’s self-esteem

Participating in a child’s play without structuring

Empowering children

Ways of responding outside of the playroom—greeting a child and saying goodbye.

Responding to a child who is reluctant to leave the playroom

Rationale & Goals for Workshop

Child Centered Play Therapy comes from a solid theoretical base and it is now recognised as one of the most effective ways of working with children who have been exposed to trauma. This workshop offers course participants a glimpse into the fascinating world of CCPT, and we anticipate that course participants will leave the workshop with a greater knowledge and understanding of CCPT as well as an awareness of the efficacy of this approach when working with children. Participants will be able to take away with them a broader and deeper range of facilitative responses, as well as an understanding of the philosophy behind these, to use in their daily interactions with children.

With no formal training or workshops available for CCPT in New Zealand, this workshop is unique. It offers course participants the opportunity to experience first-hand this very safe and deeply respectful way of working with children who have been exposed to trauma and who are experiencing
difficulties in their lives.

judi@childplayworks.co.nz

www.childplayworks.co.nz

Over the years, we have heard of many issues that keep people from seeking counselling, especially when they really need these services.

First is price. The standard rate of many counsellors in Christchurch at the time of the writing of this post is somewhere around NZD 90 – 120 dollars. This is beyond the financial means of many New Zealanders.

Second is physical access to counselling services. When you are having difficulties, it can be difficult to get yourself to a counselling practice, especially if this trip involves public transport. Once you get to counselling, you then have to manage to make your way back home, sometimes in not the best of emotional states.

These have been the top two issues that we have heard, so we are developing a therapy product to help improve the needed access to therapy services for those around New Zealand. We have been offering online counselling for clients worldwide, but we are now offering telephone counselling for our clients not only in Christchurch, but for those in all of New Zealand, including Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin. Our company director, Jerry Jordan, has experience as a telephone counsellor and as a trainer for telephone counsellors, so while this service is a new offering by our offices, it is backed with experience in telephone therapy.

While our in-person rates are currently NZD 120 per session (see our pricing link for updated rates as this page ages), we will be offering telephone counselling for NZD 50 per session. Because of this reduced rate, we will be scheduling this service outside of our regular office hours (which many clients would find very useful). We will be writing about this over the coming months, but basically you will be able to pay your counselling invoice online and we will schedule a time to phone you.

We want to make needed counselling services more readily available for those who need help and we hope that this service will be of assistance.

[Please note: These services are not just available for those in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland! If you are in New Zealand and have a landline, you can schedule therapy with us.]

The earthquakes in Canterbury have taken a terrible toll on all of us. Every day we travel the city and we see things that remind us of those terrifying minutes and days of aftershocks that have followed. We also find emotional effects, as we continue to re-live the events in our minds, as we find ourselves on edge, unable to relax and as we find ourselves nervous and fighting back emotions.

We want to do our part in helping our city to heal, so we will be offering free counselling to those affected by the earthquake (i.e., those living in Christchurch and who were in the area during the major quake on 04 September 2010). We will be offering as much assistance as our staff can support, but spaces will be limited. Contact us today to express your interest in our post-earthquake trauma counselling.

Like most people in Canterbury, I was sound asleep at 4.35AM on Saturday morning, 04 September 2010. I had gone to bed at about midnight with my wife and no doubt at least one of us was snoring heavily as the first tremors began to shake our house. Those first movements did not seem to rouse us from our slumber and I wonder how long our house shook, before we were startled into consciousness.

I remember sitting up in bed, with my wife already sitting up and looking around the darkened room. Everything – and I mean everything, house and all – were violently bouncing up and down and the noise was incredible. I looked around the room, stunned, and my wife said with a shaking voice, “EARTHQUAKE!, EARTHQUAKE!”

I jumped out of bed and headed to my son’s room, with my wife following closely behind. With every step I tried to take, the floor came up to meet my feet, almost negating any attempt on my part to run to Jack’s room. After what seemed like ages, we made it to Jack’s room and were standing next to his top bunk bed, where he was still sound asleep. Part of me wanted to let him sleep, protecting him from the reality of what was happening around him. I don’t doubt that he would have continued to sleep.

When he was about two, we lived in a rental property in Australia with something like fourteen fire alarms. One night, someone pulled up on the street next to our house and kept his car running for ages, with the car exhaust fumes coming in our open window (open to bring a breeze during that hot Aussie summer) and our fire alarms were set off in a cascade, with twelve of the fourteen alarms going off at an ear-splitting level. One of those alarms was in Jack’s room. He slept through the whole experience. We have always been lucky to have a child who sleeps so well. As I stood over Jack’s bed during the earthquake, for a split second I imagined that the earthquake would soon be over and how much better it would be not to wake Jack and bring him into such a traumatic experience.

After these quick thoughts, I reached down and shook Jack, telling him to wake up. As he started to become aware of us in his room, I tried – as gently as possible – to tell him that we needed to get him out of bed, because there was an earthquake. The house was still shaking forcefully as we picked him up and headed to the safest place in the house, a hallway that connects his bedroom to the lounge room. We stood in the hallway, me holding Jack and Kalena standing next to me and holding onto me and sobbing for several minutes.

One might imagine that when the shaking stopped there would be joy and relief, but such was not the case. The silence was deafening and one’s mind began to race, asking things like, “Is that all of it? Is there another one coming? What dangers are around us?” Kalena decided to leave the house and I wasn’t convinced that going anywhere was a good idea, but I certainly wanted to step out of a house that could be unstable and get into the open air. We had to keep Jack next to us, while we groped in the dark for things we needed, such as glasses, shoes, pants, etc.

I don’t think of myself as old – I am only 43. I have a great uncle who is 96 and in great health and his brother is about to turn 90 and still goes ten-pin bowling. During the moments after the earthquake, however, I realised how age is catching up with me. I squinted in the dark, trying to focus on the things around me. I realised that I could barely see without my glasses, but had no idea how I would find them. Wandering in the dark, feeling around for my glasses while my son held onto me, I realised how fragile we all are at any given moment. During my meditation exercises, I am encouraged to think of such things, but there is nothing like a dose of reality to bring it all home. Finally, I found my glasses on the bedside table – they were still there, but had jumped from one side to the other.

I then began to find my pants and shoes and after getting something on, I started to help my son get ready to leave the house. Kalena was dressed too by this time and I had found a torch. As we started to head out of the back door (the front lead to a deck a story above the ground and we couldn’t be sure the deck was safe), Kalena yelled that she needed her glasses. Damn it! By this point, I was more than eager to get out into the open sky and Kalena was about to turn around and go back into the darkness for her glasses. What if there was another tremor and she got hurt inside, while Jack and I were outside? What if we all stayed inside and there was more seismic activity and Jack got hurt? I wasn’t concerned for myself, but couldn’t even contemplate anything happening to him. I carried Jack back into the lounge room, while Kalena wandered around our bedroom in the dark and looked for her glasses. After what seemed like ages, Kalena returned with her glasses and we all headed out of the house.

The stars have never been more beautiful! Leaving the house and looking up at the Southern Cross, everything seemed normal. The house felt like a tomb that we had emerged from, back into the world of the living.

Jerry

(Director and Counsellor, Rekindle Counselling Ltd)