I'm a counsellor, and yours knows what they're doing. There really is a known collection of cognitive principles (whether or not the counsellor is officially using that method) as they come not from counselling but real life and adopted by it. It was because I learned them in real life and found myself applying them directly to people who asked me for help I found my career calling and have been doing it ever since. A lot really is common sense regulated by organised presentation, but don't tell everyone ;)