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Counselling Service Co. Tipperary
Jim O’Shea, Furze, Thurles, Co. Tipperary
Phone: 087 8211 009. Email: jpposhea@eircom.net
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Counselling Orientation
Jim O'Shea is a professional accredited counsellor. He is accredited
by the Irish Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapy, (IACP), the leading umbrella accrediting organisation in Ireland. This organisation imposes stringent conditions for accreditation, and counsellors must receive meaningful inservice training each year. Documentation of this annual training must be suppplied to the Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapy to ensure re-accreditation. This must be accompanied by a confidential report on the counsellor by the supervisor. The association also imposes strict rules for the supervision of counsellors to ensure maximum protection for those who come for counselling. Jim attends supervision every two weeks. His supervisor, in turn, must avail of constant supervision, and so on down the line. As an accredited counsellor Jim can offer counselling to trainee counsellors.
Jim O'Shea places great emphasis on the confidential nature of counselling, and his service is strictly confidential, as articulated by the ethics of The Irish Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists. Confidentiality is the bedrock of counselling, and helps to make the person who comes for counselling feel safe. Jim explains to the people, who come for counselling, that whatever is said in the room stays in the room. There are, however, certain limits and exceptions to confidentialiy, which are also explained. This further helps to make the people who come for counselling feel safe.
As a further safeguard of confidentially, Jim's counselling room in Thurles, Co. Tipperary, is a separate building from his house, and is furnished in a tasteful and comfortable manner. The phone number used is primarily for counselling, and there is never any contact with his house.
Each counselling session lasts for an hour, and normally there is one session per week.
There are many types of counsellors, and many counselling orientations or theories. Jim is a Humanistic Integrative counsellor. As a Humanistic counsellor,
he focuses on the exploration of feelings, but integrates other
types of counselling into his work. So, for example, he explores feelings
but also uses cognitive and cognitive behavioural counselling. Cognitive counselling
challenges how a person thinks, while humanistic counselling emphasises feeling.
Consequently this integrative approach is more holistic, and recognises the
human as a thinking and feeling person. The purpose of counselling is to help
a person make sense of their life, and so a holistic approach is the best
one, in his opinion.
In working with distressed people, Jim's main focus is on the relationship between
the counsellor and the person being counselled. This relationship is fundamental
to disclosure and, therefore to healing. The humanistic counsellor is a highly empathic person, and is able to stand in the shoes of the person who comes for counselling, to experience their distress as if it were his own, and to journey with them in the safe place of the counselling room.
Jim does not counsel people who have an addiction, or who have been sexually abused, but refers them to an appropriately trained counsellor, having supported them in other areas of their distress first. He is particularly interested in all types of human distress. Through his own sad experience, and through research, he likes to accompany bereaved people on their sad and often lonely journey. Neither has he any fears of sitting with suicidal people, being with them in their dark and apparently hopeless world, and listening for any glimpses of hope that they may show. Jim has written a great number of articles on abuse (see Tipp Tatler.), and is able to immediately see such abuse in many stories of distressed people, who may not even be aware that they are being abused, perhaps in a subtle, psychological way. Through his own difficult experience and research, he is also able to immediately see the great curse of core shame, which so lowers self-esteem and makes the person feel not good enough. Jim is also intensely interested in childhood issues, believing that many of our woes, personal and relationship-wise, stem from childhood, and he patiently helps distressed people explore their childhood, if that is their wish. He does not lead, but accompanies. Jim O'Shea is fascinated by the complexity of the human.