Sping Lim

I am trained in health psychology, one of the major branches of psychology that focuses on how biology, psychology, behaviour, and social factors influence health and illness. This allows me to use psychological skills and techniques to help my clients  eat, sleep, feel, and live better. This branch of psychology involves the promotion of health across a wide variety of domains, as well as the prevention and treatment of diseases and conditions. My work revolves around two areas:

Occupational health psychology: I help individuals  cope with workplace stress and personal issues through emotional support, building coping skills and behaviour change. I design and implement interventions to improve personal  mental and physical wellbeing, with the ultimate goal of helping people to be empowered  at the workplace, which would improve their health, quality of life and job performance.

Clinical health psychology: I help individuals cope with challenges in eating, sleeping, stress, addiction, weight management and many other undesirable  behaviours. I also support individuals and families deal with the emotional and psychological issues arising from physical conditions (e.g., anxiety, depression, etc.), diagnosis or treatment of illnesses through emotional support (individual or group therapy), medical decision making, problem solving, behaviour change and skills building necessary to effectively manage the conditions. Psychological well-being plays a significant role in improving one’s physical health and quality of life.

I apply a biopsychosocial approach in my work by  looking into  a combination of biological, psychological and social factors that could possibly contribute to the behaviour of concern. For example,  some factors that could lead  a person to to smoke (behaviour), could be due to  nicotine dependency (biological), work stress (psychological) and/or family issues (social). After understanding the client and having a discussion with the individual,  I would employ a personalised intervention plan using techiniques such as  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI)  to help my clients to improve coping , feel better and live healthier.

My therapeutic style is structured – focusing on both presenting and underlying issues. After the intake session, I will work with the client to design a therapy plan. We will explore  the present issue first, to alleviate the current situation by helping the client cope better, before looking into  the underlying issue if there is any. This approach allows the client to be supported right at the start, and  to understand the areas that we would be working on or  talk about in every session. This would also allow us to consider  the number of sessions required to work on the client’s issues in order to  achieve the client’s desired outcomes .Nonetheless, the proposed therapy plan is organic and may be modified to adapt to the client’s progress and preferences based on their most present concern.