​​Straight Up Psychology

David Fillmore   Registered Psychologist

​Other Therapies

While Psychological therapies generally fall into one of the above categories, there are also a number of other therapies that can be used, including positive psychology and couples counselling.

Positive Psychology

While many areas of psychology tend to focus on identifying and treating mental health “problems”, positive psychology shifts the focus to helping people become happier. Rather than looking at what is clinically “wrong”, it concentrates instead on the elements that allow people to lead happy, healthy lives. It is sometimes referred to as “the science of happiness”.

Positive Psychology is aimed at complementing traditional psychology by identifying and promoting those elements that contribute to each individual’s sense of wellbeing and the creation of a satisfying life filled with meaning, pleasure, positive relationships and accomplishment. Positive psychology is not just about putting on a happy face all the time, however. It teaches clients practical skills and strategies to help navigate life’s challenges more effectively and thereby increase psychological well-being and enjoyment of life despite the difficulties.

Positive psychology can help in many areas including self-help (helping individuals understand and develop their personal strengths), stress management and workplace issues.

Relationship Counselling

Healthy relationships typically require some hard work and most people will experience difficulty in their relationship at some point. Many issues will be easily resolved or resolve themselves over time, however others can become entrenched. For many people, unhelpful patterns of communicating, interacting and behaving in a relationship can develop without their realising what has actually changed. Some of the issues that can develop include communication difficulties, role conflict, power struggles, conflict resolution issues, poor intimacy, sexual dissatisfaction, infidelity.

If you and your partner are experiencing difficulties, your relationship is not abnormal. However, if you are experiencing difficulties that are persistent and are affecting your enjoyment of life, engaging a psychologist in counselling can be of great assistance in helping you to move forward in your relationship, helping to identify the issues, feelings and behaviours that you may be experiencing and provide you with the techniques that allow you to develop a deeper understanding of your relationship and create positive change.