Tradesmen's Counsellor
Ever since starting my therapeutic career in 2006, I have enjoyed counselling tradesmen, contractors, and people in associated professional roles, like project management, engineers, surveying, design, legal, compliance, operational, finance, logistics. Why? Because at heart I am a carpenter – builder of houses, hospitals, wineries, and many other projects. This is the last house I project managed and built, for our family, in 2006 just before starting in private practice.
Thus I began counselling in 2006 calling my business ‘People Builders,’ because I love building people more than houses - both are important, but people matter most. You may know me from those days? I have learnt the same principles apply – that structures,
like our whānau/ families, relationships, workplaces, businesses or leadership tend to withstand the storms of life as solidly as the foundations they are built on. What character, values and skills are you building on?
"You gave me strength and purpose to get through the darkest point
in my life."
Male Counselling Client
“You actually do not know the true extent in which you made me feel better about my situation and my life in general. You gave me strength and purpose to get through the darkest point in my life.
I had five sessions with Daryl, and he listened to me without passing judgement. His style and manner put me at ease. I am not sure how he did it, but I found myself doing most of the talking. This allowed me to air my thoughts, fears, hopes, frustrations and aspirations. All of which I would have kept inside and would never have told anyone else about at this difficult time in my life.
Daryl picked up that I am a visual learner and thinker. In one session I was standing at the whiteboard writing on it for 95% of the session. It helped immensely, despite what it looked like by the end of the session. But to me it all made perfect sense (yes, maybe I am mad?!) I captured a photo of it on my phone and to this day I still refer to it. At the time of my life when things were extraordinarily sad and blurry, it now made more sense to me. It allowed me to see "the big picture" of my life. So did the picture on the wall about the person walking their dog. I will never forget that image and will refer back to it forever.
Daryl is an extremely respectful person, and you can tell that he is actually REALLY listening to you. He takes a genuine interest in what you say, or even what you don't say. He does this by seeking clarification and also confirming what I have just said, by rephrasing it more concisely. It is definitely a feeling of reassurance when you are talking with him.
Daryl doesn't rush when he is the one talking. You can tell he is very thoughtful in what he says before he says it. He analyses what has just been said before he responds. And sometimes he will question you. It doesn't feel like an interrogation. It feels like he is just trying to help. He doesn't TELL you how you should be thinking, he QUESTIONS how you should be thinking. This helped me no end.
In summary, Daryl has completely changed my mindset. I had a very brief glimpse of giving life away just before I made an appointment to see him. The over-riding feeling of an unexpected loss, hurt, grief and despair was the hardest time in my life. It was a life changing event. God awful. But Daryl changed my way of thinking, although he will say it was a team effort, I think I only played a small part in it. It's his doing and his credit, as to how I am today.
For this I will be forever grateful for his services and friendship during this bloody tough time I was going through. I would have no hesitation in recommending Daryl to anyone, but especially men. He just "gets it." Thank you, Daryl. Words can't express just how thankful I truly am!” Kind regards, TS