It may be unknown to many that it costs more than reading a few best-selling books off the shelf to maintain a practice that can offer the best available evidence-based methods to address the struggles within human mental processes. First of all, it took investing years finishing a postgraduate degree and a lifetime’s continuing education to not just keep pace with new developments in the field, but also to sharpen and refresh skills learned from past training.
It is also unfeasible to keep our costs down with little regard to the kind of service we provide that can deteriorate with burnout caused by having to see an unhealthy number of clients in a single workday. Counseling requires intense mental focus and agility. This is why we in the field make sure that we get adequate time to rest and refresh for every client we face, while still allowing for time to keep our knowledge-base updated to what we know as the most effective means of fulfilling our roles as advocates for not just alleviating human suffering, but also promoting human prosperity.
Our sole reliance on whatever income generated from the individual client services we offer can be very challenging at times. One Life Only Counseling Services is a purely privately-funded endeavor with no institutional support. This is in part due to our commitment to keeping our independence in the pursuit of the best evidence-based approaches available. Through the years, this movement dedicated to producing a better people for a better country, has had to rely in part on the kind and generous hearts we meet along the way to keep its viability.
It is in part due to the generous contributions of these people that we have gone on with our mission to this day since our inception in April of 2009. I would like to thank them here in no particular order.
Thank you Dr. Philip David Truscott for those arduous times that you sat with me, Nathan Chua, to create this website that has withstood the tests of operating in a country where professional counseling is still less widely accepted as it is in developed countries. I am no computer savant, so those long hours in the afternoon that stretched into our evening dinners together will always be part of our history as friends and collaborators. It is one graduation gift that will live on as one of my fondest memories.
As we continue to keep our work visible and available to as many as possible, it is not uncommon that we face challenges to our very existence along the way. One Life Only has dodged a number of bullets through the years. To Ms. Angeline See and Ms. E, you have been a godsend! You will always be remembered for your selfless assistance at a time when the odds were stacked against this movement for a greater focus on human development in the Philippines than just professional and occupational development alone.
There are many others worthy of mention here. Please forgive me if I acknowledge you as a group that has been part of my journey from businessman to counselor. Everyone who has shared years or even moments with me in this new direction I have chosen for what remains of my time, is an invaluable part of my life’s enrichment and work.
Thank you to the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science for the introduction you gave me to Dr. Russ Harris’ workshops that have done wonders to my understanding of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and its philosophical foundation that is functional contextualism.
Finally, I thank all my clients who have entrusted their deepest life concerns with me. To my individual clients, your experiences have enriched me as we walked side-by-side towards our deepest longings for a more meaningful and purposeful existence. To my corporate clients who have stayed with me through the challenging years, especially during a pandemic that only comes by once in a hundred years, no words can express my heartfelt thanks. Your continuing confidence in my abilities and advocacy is the reason why One Life Only has come this far in a mission to build a better Philippines, even if it means doing it just one life at a time, as one person sits across me in either a physical or virtual room.