Hello, My name is Geoffrey Littler, I am a qualified addictions counsellor and I work at Saarsha holistic healing center. I am a survivor of 27 years of substance dependency, mental, emotional and physical abuse and have spent the past 12 years on a journey of recovery that I can only describe as miraculous. You could say it is my destiny to help others recover from a terri­ble and sometimes fatal illness and that may be so, I just know that guided by a power greater than myself I am on the right road and doing what I am supposed to be doing.

I trained as a counsellor at CIT in Wellington NZ and I specialize in addictions counselling. I am eclectic in my approach and I also work with couples, families and youth with a wide range of behavioural and psychological problems including relationship counselling, drink driver re-licensing (LTSA apvd), court reports & assessments, conflict resolution etc. I am an approved competent counsellor and am registered with Drug & Alcohol Practitioners of Aotearoa New Zealand DAPAANZ.

The most common interventions I use are: Motivational counselling, Harm reduction/ Harm minimization, Alcoholics Anonymous (abstinence) model, Medical model, Client centered counselling, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Guided Self Change.

In my ten years of working in this field I have found (personally) Client centered and motiva­tional counselling to be by far the most rewarding in terms of facilitating change. The most successful by far (in my opinion) in regard to addictions has to be the 12-step model of AA. A lot of counsel­lors will argue this but there are studies to back this up. The programme of AA is a slow but methodical process in which a person is taught how to live life in absolute honesty and open­ness and to go onto help others get & stay sober. It is a wonderful programme and requires time, ef­fort, thought and most importantly a connection with a spiritual higher power.

Client centered counselling is quite simply gentle reflective listening and letting the client know you are with them in their world and to re­solve their own issues by talking them out and hearing them reflected back to them.

Motivational counselling is also a powerful tool; in the hands of a skilled clinician many people have been able to make good in­formed and healthy decisions about changing parts of their lives
that were problematic or causing distress. It is a directive, client centered counselling style that elicits change by highlighting dis­crepancies between a clients current behaviours and desired goals.