BEING QUALIFIED PROFESSIONALS

Our therapist Gayle shares her view of our core foundation:
Being Qualified Professionals

When we started dreaming about The Journey International, we talked about creating a service in Amman to provide affordable but professional mental health services.  I wanted to be part of a project that used my qualifications and experience, that people would describe with words like ‘professional’, ‘competent’, ‘ethical’, ‘experienced’ and ‘qualified’.  A core foundation we have adopted is to be qualified professionals, a key element of this is to only invite qualified professionals to work with us.    

In Jordan the terms counsellor, psychotherapist and psychologist are not protected terms.  Essentially this means anyone can call themselves any of these titles.  In my time as a psychotherapist I have worked with clients who have previously seen counsellors who have not had good mental health training.  While I believe there is a place for a ‘lay counsellor’ when someone needs an empathetic listening ear, there is also the need for more qualified and experienced professionals.  This could be when they have a mental health diagnosis, or when they need someone to help them understand their difficulties, and find ways to move forward.  We are here to meet this need!  Each of our therapists have completed a Masters degree in mental health, including many hours of supervised clinical practice in addition to lectures and research in the mental health field. 

In addition to creating a professional service our vision has always been to create a holistic mental health service.  We believe yoga, when facilitated by a trained professional, can be an excellent companion to counselling/ therapy.  It can also be a beneficial stand alone therapy to aid in relieving the stresses of life when counselling/ therapy may not be needed.  Yoga can, however, take many forms, and it is important for us to ensure our yoga service aligns with our values and vision.  Our yoga instructor is trained in holistic yoga and trauma sensitive yoga.  This means she has studied the effect of trauma and stress on the body and incorporates this learning into all of her yoga classes.    

At The Journey International we are committed to knowing both our strengths in mental health knowledge and its application, as well as our limitations within our scope of training and experience.  We strive to ensure you see the professional best suited to your needs, even if that means referring to another service.  We also endeavour to continue our education, to read about new developments in our field, attend training courses where possible and are open to any opportunities to deepen our understanding.