Child Counselling in Defence Colony

Child counselling in Defence Colony is the therapy itself: the weekly hour in which a child works on what is actually troubling them. The short answer is our Malviya Nagar centre, because we do not have a centre in Defence Colony. This page covers what happens in that room, what you will and will not be told about it, and how long a course usually runs.

Which eMbrace centre Defence Colony families use

Our closest centre to Defence Colony is in Malviya Nagar, at FC-29, Plot No. 5, Geetanjali, beside Malviya Nagar Metro Station Gate No. 1. We have no centre in Defence Colony, and it is a drive of some length, not a hop.

From Defence Colony, Jangpura and Lajpat Nagar the road route runs via Ring Road and Press Enclave Marg. On the metro it is a Violet Line to Yellow Line change at Central Secretariat or Hauz Khas depending on where you start, so most families in this catchment drive.

For families where the travel is the obstacle rather than the appointment, we run sessions online, and a good deal of child psychology work, particularly parent-facing sessions, does not lose anything in that format.

Counselling is a weekly commitment rather than a single appointment, which changes how much the journey matters. A route that is fine once is a different proposition every week for three months, and travel is the commonest reason a family stops coming before the work is finished. Say so on the intake call and we will build the scheduling around your week, including running some sessions online.

For parking, the nearest drop-off point and the quickest route at your particular time of day, ask on the intake call. Traffic and parking around every one of these centres change enough through the day that current directions from someone who works there beat anything we could fix on a web page.

Counselling, or assessment first?

Counselling is therapy: a child works on anxiety, anger, confidence, friendships, grief or a change at home. Assessment is diagnostic testing for something like ADHD, autism or a learning difficulty. Most children need the first, but some need the second before the first will work, because counselling a child for low confidence when the cause is an unidentified reading difficulty treats the symptom and leaves the cause.

• Counselling suits a child whose difficulty is emotional or relational
• Assessment comes first where the difficulty is with learning, attention or communication
• Both at once is common, and the two clinicians talk to each other

The full picture of how the therapy itself works is on our child counselling page.

What a counselling session actually looks like

It depends almost entirely on age. Under about eight it is play-based and looks like playing, because that is how young children process what they cannot yet say. From eight to twelve it mixes talking, drawing and structured activities. With teenagers it looks much more like adult therapy, with the young person setting a good deal of the agenda. Sessions run weekly at the same time, because the predictability is part of what makes it work.

On confidentiality, which is what parents ask about most: what your child says in the room is broadly theirs, and that privacy is what makes them willing to say anything at all. You get themes, progress and what to do at home, not a transcript. The exception, which we explain to your child at the start, is anything suggesting they are at risk.

What children work on in counselling here

From Defence Colony and Jangpura the themes are anxiety and low mood in secondary-age children, and long-standing behaviour difficulties in younger ones where the pattern has had a year or more to set. Families here have often seen a school counsellor first, so the counselling we do tends to start further along than it otherwise would.

Grief and bereavement work is a steadier thread from this catchment than from most, and it is work that specifically does not benefit from being rushed.

Who you would see at our Malviya Nagar centre

Dr Supriya Malik, Founder and CEO, and Head of the Child Development Centre at Rainbow

PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Birmingham, where she was also a postdoctoral researcher, and a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society in the UK. She designed the assessment and therapy pathways every eMbrace centre runs.

At our Malviya Nagar centre, the clinicians who take this work are:

Taranpreet Kaur, Clinical Psychologist

M.Phil in Clinical Psychology with distinction, plus a Post Graduate Diploma in School Counselling from Symbiosis. ACT and MBCT for anxiety, depression, OCD and trauma, and comprehensive psychological assessment. Works in English, Hindi and Punjabi.

Cheesha Kanwar, Psychologist

Completing an MSc in Clinical Psychology at Christ (Deemed to be University), with a BA (Hons) in Applied Psychology from the University of Delhi. Behaviour therapy and assessment support using WISC-V, NEPSY-II, Conners-3 and BRIEF-2. Works in English and Hindi.

Which of them you see is decided on the intake call rather than by whoever has the next free slot, and you are told who it will be before you book. Fuller biographies are on our about page.

Schools and services we already work with

Some of what we do around Defence Colony happens inside institutions rather than at a centre, which is often how a family first hears of us.

Our Malviya Nagar centre runs inside Rainbow Children's Hospital, New Delhi, which is why occupational therapy, physiotherapy, speech therapy, behaviour therapy and special education sit in the same building as assessment.

Where a child or adult needs psychiatric input, we work with Sukoon across Delhi NCR for psychiatric assessment, consultation and medication management, so you are not left to find a psychiatrist yourself.

Fees, how long a course runs, and how it ends

Fees are quoted upfront on your intake call, before anything is booked, and depend on which clinician your child works with.

Most courses run eight to sixteen weekly sessions, formally reviewed at around session six. Grief, trauma and family change need longer. If a course is not working the answer is to change it, not to book more of it. Endings are planned over the last two or three sessions, because a child who has trusted an adult with difficult material should not simply stop seeing them one week.

Frequently asked questions