APPROACH

Welcome. Thanks for visiting. You are invited to explore. May you emerge more educated. May you make wise decisions. Choose a skillful helping person. Talk to someone who can help. Each web page has a summary. The site map has an outline of the entire site.

Jim

Dr. Jim Psychologist Mentor Guide

http://www.drjimpsychologist.com

Dr. Jim Leonidas Ph.D., C. Psych.

Registered Clinical Counselling Psychologist

Canadian Register Health Service Providers Psychology

jimleonidas@mac.com

1.416.484.9912 voice mail

Skype Name: drjimpsychologist.com

10 MCNAIRN Avenue Suite H1 Toronto Ontario Canada M5M 2H5

Nearest major Intersection LAWRENCE and YONGE Streets LAWRENCE PARK NORTH TORONTO Neighborhood GREATER TORONTO AREA GTA

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. Plato

Awe and Wonder. Humbleness and Modesty. Thankfulness and Gratitude. Acceptance and Forgiveness. These are some effects of Transcendent Consciousness, perhaps the few which are also gateways to it. May we be blessed with them. Edwin Holloway

Summary

Roles of the Professional and the Client

A View of How Counselling Works

Development of a Style and Approach to Counselling over 36 years

Our lives contain clues, threads that once deciphered, point us to our true vocation, and path of authentic service in the world. Parker Palmer

Roles of the Professional and the Client

Counselling is a collaborative venture whereby we work together on your goals. My approach is tailored to address your needs. I work at your pace. We review your progress on a regular basis.

My function is to serve as an independent, objective sounding board, a trained and knowledgeable listener, with your best interests at heart. The process is friendly, professional, educational, and informative.

A true, caring bond develops, uncontaminated by the psychologist’s needs, focused on nurturing the psychological development of the client.

My commitment is to ensure that you are informed about your counselling options, and have the freedom to choose what works best for your needs.

Our purpose during the first four sessions is to clearly identify, clarify, and define the nature of your presenting concerns. This involves gathering background and historical information by means of discussion, as well as, by asking the client to fill out numerous inventories.

We develop a formulation, a set of goals, prioritizing what is most important to the client. Your goals and directions are established and mutually agreed upon.

We discuss various treatment methods, and plan how we will work towards our goals. We mutually agree upon a plan of approach and methods to be used. Then the client gives consent to begin treatment.

Questions about what we are doing, our goals, the methods, or any aspect, will be answered at any time. The client can withdraw consent to what we are doing and discontinue participation at any time.

The frequency of visits varies depending on the goals and purposes of the work, from weekly, biweekly, to monthly. Our sessions are organized in such a manner that it is financially manageable within the client’s budget.

You certainly do not have to be ‘crazy’ to see a psychologist. You may simply have some issues in getting on with your life.

You are able to discuss absolutely anything without expectation of criticism or judgment.

At times, it may also be useful for the client to see their family physician for a complete physical examination. Consultations with other specialists, health care providers, or community resources may be helpful whenever there is any indication that the client could benefit from additional expertise.

I strongly believe in working with the other resources in the community, and staying within the limits of my competence as a psychologist.

Not only do we inherently possess the potential for compassion but I believe that the basic, underlying nature of human beings is gentleness. Dalai Lama

A View of How Counselling Works

What follows is a series of statements describing some of the central ingredients, attitudes, and ways of working that are characteristic of my particular approach to counseling.

Counselling is a gentle, sensitive and genuinely caring process that occurs within a safe, secure and trusting relationship; deeply respecting, honouring and validating the essential nature of the person; listening with depth to the whole human being; inviting, accepting, warmly welcoming, and cherishing different parts of the person forward; a heart felt, curious, and kind presence.

There is an ongoing process inherent in life itself of people becoming more whole and complete. Counselling enables people to more readily cooperate with their own life process of becoming more and more of the person they are meant to become. Counselling involves working with the whole person towards integrating different parts of the personality to work more effectively together, just as a conductor of an orchestra requires the different instruments to play harmoniously together.

Counselling the whole being of the person involves dealing with the mind, body, feelings, emotions and spirit. Creating balance between mind and heart promotes a sense of harmony. A deep physical relaxation, letting go and opening of the body unlocks the person's inherent wisdom. Rediscovering one's inner spirit opens a person to higher energy, purpose, and creativity.

A search for meaning may involve recovering a sense of the sacred, discovering what spiritual means for a particular person, appreciating the sublime, cultivating a relationship with something larger than oneself, experiencing the awe, magnificence, joy, beauty and wonder in ordinary daily living.

The counselling process involves an active focusing and purposeful exploring of particular issues in living; mobilizing and generating a person's own internal resources; developing particular qualities necessary for living; enabling the person to trust in finding their own inherent wisdom, their own answers, rather then seeking advice from outside, external authorities.

The counselling process involves: learning from the foundations of one's past, fostering a keen awareness in one's present living, as well as, cultivating a sense of purpose and direction unfolding in one's future; a searching out of deeper patterns, cycles and rhythms in the person's life; an encouraging and enabling of the person to discover and create their own distinctive, unique, and original way in living.

Concrete, down to earth, practical application, and grounding of new learning's are made that make a difference in the action and doing of a person's everyday life; identifying what is needing to be expressed, and allowing and encouraging it to come forward in the person now; blending and integrating new parts of the person; recovering a sense of inner balance; enabling the person to be more of who they are.

We are the night ocean filled with glints of light. We are the space between the fish and the moon, while we sit here together. Rumi

Development of a Style and Approach to Counselling over 36 years

The development of my own style and approach to counselling over 36 years has been strongly influenced by the Experiential Humanistic and Person-Centered traditions, represented by such people as Carl Rogers, Eugene Gendlin, Clarke Moustakas and Abraham Maslow, the teachings of Psychosynthesis developed by Roberto Assagioli, David Grand’s Brainspotting, and the EMDR method originated by Francine Shapiro.

The following two web pages will describe the nature and purpose of two, among many, different methods used in the counselling process, for the purpose of inviting and creating a profound, organic, evolving, and unfolding of the life forward direction of the person.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. Arundhati Roy

Jim