Our method:
Value Based Counseling®
VALUE BASED COUNSELING (VBC) is aimed at people who are exposed to high stress, are in a personal crisis, have to cope with difficult experiences. People who feel restricted in their daily lives by symptoms of depression, anxiety and being overwhelmed.
Short-term intervention
Value Based Counseling (VBC) is a short-term psychodynamic intervention and is based on the idea that people are guided by a deep need for a meaningful life. What we find meaningful depends on our personal values, hence the term value-based Counseling.
Self-efficacy
Value Based Counseling avoids pathologising of clinical symptoms. Instead, the Counseling approach seeks to understand the meaning of these symptoms as an expression of unresolved social stress. VBC is based on the assumption that a person who becomes aware of his or her situation, his or her own and others’ value hierarchies as well as the feelings triggered by them, opens up room for manoeuvre for change. The aim is to improve the client’s sense of coherence and self-efficacy in the course of a non-directive but carefully structured conversation.
The success
The success of Value Based Counseling relies heavily on the counsellor entering into an eye-to-eye relationship with the client. This requires the ability to take on perspective, impartiality and emphatic understanding. Unlike others, VBC has an intracultural approach, so the counsellors speak the mother tongue of their clients and have the same cultural background.
These principles ensure that counsellors and clients quickly establish a trusting working relationship, engage in deep personal conversations from the first session onwards, and bring about positive changes in clients’ lives within an average of three to five sessions.
For My7steps, trained psychologists are certified in Value Based Counseling® as part of a 6-month additional training.
How does Value Based Counseling
work at My7steps?
The Counseling sessions
The 7 Steps are the basis of the digital interaction with My7steps App and the structured conversation with your counsellor.
STEP 1-3
The first phase of the conversations aims to understand your inner situation well. Together we find out why you are not doing well at the moment. In doing so, we examine the connection between external factors, your environment, your relationships and their effect on you and your psyche.
STEP 4-6
The second phase is about restoring your ability to act. We focus on the here and now. It is about your resources, about new ideas to deal with the present situation, taking into account your values. Your counsellor supports you to achieve what you want to achieve.
STEP 7
In the last phase we strengthen your resources and consolidate your successes in the long term. We look back together: How did the difficulties arise and what helped to overcome them?
Proven effectiveness of Value Based Counseling®
Two randomised and controlled scientific studies significantly confirm one:
In practice, Value Based Counseling has been used in humanitarian aid for over 15 years. In one-on-one Counseling sessions, it has helped over 400,000 people worldwide.
- Reduction of depressive symptom(s)
- Improvement of resilience
- Improvement of everyday functioning