What to Expect
Your journey toward living in line with your values is unique — shaped by your own experiences, challenges, goals and preferences. Counselling with Bart reflects that individuality.
At the same time, there are some essentials you can always count on in working with him. Here are the foundations you can expect in every session:
WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM COUNSELLING WITH BART
50-minute sessions, in person or online
Sessions scheduled to suit your availability
WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOUR SESSIONS
A comfortable, private counselling room in a discreet setting
Working towards your needs and objectives
Conveniently located directly above Sheung Wan MTR
EMDR equipment available when appropriate
01 - 03
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps you deal differently with difficult thoughts, emotions and experiences, rather than letting them control your life. It can help you accept what cannot be changed, while making meaningful changes in the areas you can influence.
ACT also helps you explore what really matters to you and take practical steps towards living more in line with your values. Because it is highly flexible, we can choose approaches and exercises that suit you and the challenges you are facing.
Bart has extensive training in ACT, including Trauma-Focused ACT with Russ Harris and the ACT Bootcamp with ACT founder Steven Hayes.
02 - 03
Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions and what is happening in your body, without immediately reacting to them. It can help you stay more present, step back from unhelpful thought patterns and make more deliberate choices about how you respond.
It can also help you make room for difficult emotions rather than constantly trying to avoid or control them. Closely related is self-compassion — learning to respond to your own difficulties with greater understanding rather than judgement.
Bart draws on his long-standing personal practice of mindfulness and compassion meditation to teach simple, practical techniques that can be incorporated into everyday life.
03 - 03
EMDR Therapy
EMDR helps you process traumatic, difficult or overwhelming experiences that continue to affect how you feel or react today. Rather than simply talking about what happened, EMDR uses bilateral stimulation to help the brain process memories so they become less distressing and feel more firmly in the past.
Bart is a trained EMDR therapist and uses dedicated EMDR equipment, including a light bar and pulsators.
Learn more about EMDR therapy →
04 - 04
Trauma-Informed
Trauma is often at the root of why we get stuck in certain emotional patterns. Importantly, trauma is not defined by the event itself, but by how you responded to it and how you were able — or unable — to make sense of the experience. Trauma does not always revolve around a single event; it can also result from an accumulation of hurt or emotional neglect, particularly during childhood. These experiences can shape defence mechanisms that once served a purpose, but now hold you back. Bart is a certified trauma-informed ACT therapist, trained to use techniques that gently support the processing of trauma. In practice, this may involve inner child visualisations and other experiential methods to help you revisit and reframe past experiences in a safe, supportive way. Healing from trauma can reduce anxiety, improve emotional regulation, strengthen relationships, and allow you to feel more at ease with yourself and live more authentically.
COUNSELLING APPROACHES
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