Individual; Couple; Family of Origin; Stress Management; Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills; Rebuilding after Separation; Co-parenting and Blended Family Issues; Personal Growth and Self-esteem; Inner Journey work; Same Sex counselling; EFT practitioner (Emotional Freedom Technique) for work with phobias, anxiety, panic attacks.
SERVICES
About My Work
My areas of professional support are as outlined on the home page. In my experience most relationship difficulties are encountered around differences in communication styles, finances, in-laws, parent/child relationships, affairs, negotiating the balance between intimacy and independence, and also power and control issues.
Rebuilding after separation is becoming a more frequent aspect of counselling support, as are co-parenting and blended family issues. For same sex couples, gender role socialization and homophobia are often added issues. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse, self-esteem, and the impact of this on the person and their relationships, are also areas in which I work with my clients.
Besides the support you gain from counselling while you are working through a difficult period in your life, there is also the very important benefit of once you understand your own unique dynamics and inherent belief systems, you are less likely to be at risk of repeating these destructive patterns endlessly. “If you don’t beat it you’ll repeat it”. We also need to think about what relationship and self-esteem models we are unintentionally imparting to our children. Change in you allows change in them.
What's Counselling?
If you ask me what my counselling work involves, I would say just about every aspect of our lives, because our life, how we see ourselves, how we interact with our partners, parents, siblings, children, friends and associates, the joys and difficulties we are likely to experience in these relationships, are a direct result of our own past relationship models and conditioning. Our family or origin is the most important in this. The majority of our conditioning and the belief systems, expectations and fears that we draw from this are largely subconscious. This subconscious retinue causes us to react emotively rather than rationally or truthfully, and often in a way that does not support us or our relationships. This is most evident in our closest relationships where we are at our most vulnerable.
Relationships are a dynamic system. Like any system, what we put in it is what we are going to get out of it. There are good interactions and downright painful ones. When we keep creating the latter, we think something is wrong with ourselves, our partner and/or the relationship. Our mistake is in thinking this shouldn't be happening. But challenges should arise. They are the potential growth points of any relationship. When things really get stuck and you're thinking about wanting out of the mess because the same endless arguments or stand-offs, just like dirty washing, keep recycling without any real resolution, then you can bet it's your subconscious belief systems that are at the core of this frustrating dynamic.
It's finding out what this is that can unlock the system. How to make or break any kind of relationship rests on this understanding and how you employ this self knowledge. My job is to support you in discovering this and to keep you on track with yourself while you work through it. You need to know in reality what it is you want to change, how to go about it, and if you're stuck, what's causing the "stuckness". You're in control of taking responsibility of making the changes you want too. The power ball's in your court. Whilst I work with you from an overall systemic, holistic perspective, I make an eclectic use of therapeutic models, strategies, and incorporate the dynamics of mind/body emotional energy work in a way that I feel, with your agreement, will best support you.
My Background
My formal academic training as indicated includes a Bachelor of Arts, Diploma of Education, 1970, Monash University, and a four-year Bachelor of Letters Degree Course majoring in Psychology and Criminology, 1985-90, Melbourne University. My area of specialised training in relationships counselling (Advanced Diploma) was done through Relationships Australia where I was an intern with, and worked for, Relationships Australia for four years. I left to form my own private practice in 2000.
Throughout my academic and professional career I have regularly engaged in a wide range of self-development courses and training practices. I have had training and personal experience working with migrant communities educationally, socially and culturally. My training in Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) was with Dr David Lake and psychologist Steve Wells, both authors and eminent practitioners in the field. EFT accesses the mind/body energy system through the use of acupressure points and affirmative statement. It works with balancing our negative belief systems and bringing out our positive abilities to support ourselves and accomplish what it is we want to do in any field of endeavour. It's particularly good for performance anxiety as well as panic attacks, anxiety attacks, phobias of all kinds, has even been found to be useful with migraine headaches. It's a very easy self-help technique for practical, effective use in stressful situations. I have also enrolled in courses to further my skills in the field of Intuitive Energetics.
I am a mother of two, a grandmother of only one as yet, and have been in a relationship with my husband for over 35 years. Over much of our time together we were also engaged in two successful partnership businesses. And yes, that does test a relationship. I was responsible for jointly running the business, negotiating with and relating to a variety of clients, and also managing and training staff. I've had substantial experience of secondary and adult education. The breadth of my life experience is another plus that I bring to my counselling perspective. Gardening is my passion and sanity saver.
QUALIFICATION DETAILS
Counselling, EFT
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