Counselling Related Services

• Individual Counselling

The Counseling Services Centre is providing various types of counseling services including Individual Counseling (face to face). The counselors work with individual clients who have personal conflicts, relationship difficulties, psychological problems or academic concerns through a therapeutic relationship which facilitates personal exploration of the difficulties

Individual Counseling is to enable the student to find ways of living that reflect her/his needs and values with our Counselors.

Individual counseling is basically a collaborative effort between you and counselor. Our goal is to provide an open, supportive, and confidential environment for you to address the issues that are concerning you.

• Group Counselling

The Counseling Services Centre offers a variety of therapeutic discussion and support groups.  Group counseling has been shown to be particularly effective in a university environment. Group counseling provides an opportunity for small groups of students to meet and share common concerns, explore personal issues, and learn new skills under the guidance of our counselors.

Group members help each other by making suggestions and positive feedbacks. Group members are not forced to reveal more about themselves than they feel comfortable with, but they are expected to maintain confidentiality out of mutual respect for other group members.

The counselors are there to lead, to facilitate and to support the progress as to achieve the group’s objectives. Counselors recognize that individuals have different ways of expressing themselves and strive to create an environment that is safe, respectful and inclusive.

• Detox Stress Programme Through Expressive Art (Group Counselling)

Detox Stress Programme is a new initiative to empower the use of Expressive Arts techniques in helping IIUM community to release their stress and improve their quality of life. The concept of this programme is to promote self-expression whereby people can use all the materials with minimal assistance from CCSC staff/counselor. Expressive Arts comprises with many elements of therapy such as:  

•    Drawing/doodling therapy
•    Creative arts therapy (i.e. Origami)
•    Music/lyric therapy
•    Movement and relaxation therapy
•    Play therapy (i.e. clay, lego, puppet, etc.)
•    Biblio therapy
•    Spiritual therapy

Expressive arts, which consist of many different techniques are the type of therapy that helps the clients to explore and express their subconscious emotions and thoughts. This therapy is strongly based on psychoanalysis theory in which it promotes genuine expression through creative approaches and not restricted to any structured procedures. Thus expressive arts give an opportunity for clients to experience impact in four different ways:

• Expression
• Imagination
• Active participation
• Self-healing
• Mind-body connection

Objective: 

1. To promote self-expression through creative approach.
2. To provide safe platform to release negative thought/emotion
3. To empower individual strengths for self-healing.
4. To enhance the usage of Expressive Arts in counseling intervention.

• Direct Intake Group (Group Counselling)

New students experience pattern of stages named W-Curve. This pattern of stages showed that most students experience culture shock during their first year of study. To help them adjust with their environment, this group was established.

Objective : 

1. To guide new student to cope with adjustment issues that they may experience.
2. To provide social support to new student who feel lonely and lost.
3. To guide students on effective communication and social interaction skills.

• Counseling Intervention Programme

Counseling Intervention Programme is a group therapy programme which involves comprehensive psychological and counseling treatment. This group focuses to provide a safe space for people who are battling for mental illness particularly depression. Students need to take care of their health regardless whether it is physical or mental so that they would be able to analyze, understand, and absorb the knowledge that they get during their study period. Poor self-care among students may lead to lateness and absence from classes which may also affecting the academic performance of the students. Given importance to this issues, this programme is purposely designed to help student to have a better well-being and life.

Objective :

1. To administer scientific psychological test in identifying the level of participants’ problems severity related to sleep disturbances.
2. To provide proper interventions based on the result of the test.
3. To help participants identifying and discussing their feeling and personal issues related to mental illness.
4. To help the participants gaining social support, working in team, and learn from each other.