Counselling
The Bamboo Centre provides counselling for individuals, couples, families and adolescents in a variety of languages including Khmer, English, and Finnish.
People seek counselling for different reasons:
- Anxiety or depression about work, school or family or other relationships
- Stress related issues that blur the mind and prevent healthy decision making
- Issues from the past or concerns for the future
- Life changes like moving to another country, marriage, the birth of a child, or the death of a loved one
- Or problems with alcohol, gambling, eating disorders or drugs
Adults
There are times in all our lives when we feel unable to cope. Sometimes the causes of these problems seem fairly clear and we know where to turn for assistance. At other times our problems are difficult to understand and we can find no answer from our own resources or contacts. Talking to a counsellor, who is impartial and skilled, can help us work through our personal difficulties and find solutions. Counsellors are trained to listen and to help us explore our feelings, thoughts and behaviours in a safe, confidential and non-judgemental way. Counselling does not claim to be the answer to all human difficulties, but it can help us find our own answers and does offer support. In this way counselling assists us to move towards more effective ways of coping, enabling us to have greater control of our lives.
Adolescents
Adolescents are searching for a clear understanding of who they are as individuals, while at the same time filtering through the confusion that others and society in general would say that they are or should be. They want to know who they are; they want to know their unique place in the world. But so many external pressures and voices tell them many different things, they tell them how to act, what to do, what they should be, how they should live, etc. It therefore can become extremely difficult for a teenager to reach a place of inner peace with knowing who they are, and where they belong.
Areas of Counselling
Emotional Abuse: allows one person to gain power and control over another through words and gestures which gradually undermine the other’s self-respect.
Obsessive compulsive disorders: Usually involves obsessions (intrusive thoughts or impulses) and compulsions (repeated behaviours) such as washing, checking or counting to counteract them.
Relationship Issues: Some relationships are unable to contain some of life’s pressures and stresses; illness, redundancy, retirement or debt all take their toll.
Trauma: A traumatic event involves an experience or enduring event(s) that overwhelm our ability to cope or understand the ideas and emotions involved with that experience.
Stress: Too much stress can put your health at risk and leave you unable to function. It is the second major cause of illness at work, after back problems.
Terminal Illness: Counselling can be a valuable resource for everyone close to the individual, and for the individual themselves.
Work-related issues: Counselling can help unravel patterns of relating to people, and show us how to examine our own issues, helping towards a more fulfilling career.
Anger Management: Understanding what the trigger points are and re-examining our thoughts around them can be among the first steps to managing anger.
Anxiety: Anxiety is a problem which feeds on itself and is often covered up and dealt with in isolation. Anxiety can take many forms including phobias, social anxiety, panic attacks, and insomnia.
Depression: Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person’s thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless.
Bereavement Counselling: Involves talking about the loss and is usually helpful and allows a person to adjust to their new life with all its changes, good and bad. However keeping things bottled up, or denying the sadness can prolong the pain.
Low self-esteem: Counselling can often help those suffering from low self-esteem and help develop a sense of self, to ensure a more fulfilling life.
Email, Video or Voice Chat Counselling
We can provide an online personal counselling experience that is modeled, as closely as possible, after in-person counselling. We adhere to the same professional ethics and standards of practice online as we would do if we were meeting you in our Phnom Penh office. You can expect the same level of care that you would expect with a highly qualified and experienced in-person counsellor. We can currently offer online counselling through emails, video or voice.
