I believe that we all desire to move towards a deeper and more meaningful life and psychotherapy offers a catalyst for this exploration and change. Your individual needs and goals will direct the pace and intensity of the therapy.
SERVICES
About Me
I am an experienced Person Centered, Emotion Focused Counselor and Psychotherapist. When working with clients I draw upon my training as a Social Worker and my therapeutic training in humanistic, person centred counselling, including Process-Experiential Emotion Focused Therapy. I draw on a broad range on work and life experiences, including my own personal journey. I have strong values in social justice and have worked in a variety of community settings. I believe by offering a non-judgmental and empathetic environment, I can assist you to develop your own personal goals for self-discovery and change, and help you to reach those goals by exploring your emotional world, inner wisdom and healing.
I believe that we all desire to move towards a deeper and more meaningful life and psychotherapy offers a catalyst for this exploration and change. Your individual needs and goals will direct the pace and intensity of the therapy.
Services
- Individual counseling & psychotherapy
- Parenting support alongside individual work with children & young people
I am experienced in working with people across the life span (6 years +) Areas of expertise and interest include:
- Eating Disorders (Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders Otherwise Not Specified, Binge Eating Disorder) and Disordered Eating (Preoccupation with weight & food, issues with food that fall out of the diagnosed eating disorder categories above)
- Body Image issues
- Depression
- Post Natal Depression
- Anxiety
- Grief and Loss
- Borderline Processes
- Trauma including Post Traumatic Stress/ Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Self Esteem Issues
- Relationship Issues
- Adolescent Issues
- GLBTI Issues
Process Experiential Emotion Focused Therapy (Emotion Focused Therapy)
Process Experiential Emotion Focused Therapy values the counselling relationship itself and it also assists us to bring our inner self and emotions into our awareness, creating greater understanding and moving towards our own potential for greater wholeness and healing.
It has been researched extensively and is an evidenced based practice listed on the APA website. It has been shown to be effective in the treatment of depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma and abuse. Drawing on humanistic, Gestalt, Person Centred and Experiential therapies, Emotion Focused Therapy is a safe and effective way of not only exploring and accessing what may be underlying our unwanted ways of feeling and behaving, but allowing things to shift and change in a longer lasting way.
Focusing and Mindfulness in Psychotherapy
Focusing is a mode of inward bodily attention, it is more than being in touch with your feelings and different from body work.
The body sense is unclear and vague at first, but if you pay attention it will open up into words or images and you experience a felt shift in your body.
In the process of Focusing, one experiences a physical change in the way that the issue is being lived in the body. We learn to live in a deeper place than just thoughts or feelings. The whole issue looks different and new solutions arise.
In the safety of the non-judgemental therapeutic relationship, I may guide you through focusing: sitting in the present moment, deep breathing and mindfulness awareness of the interface of the mind-body, and allowing what is there for you to unfold. The body felt sense is unclear and vague at first, but if you pay attention it will open up into words or images. I provides an environment where your exact experience will be understood and encouraged. When this happens often a felt shift occurs in the body and new awareness emerges. Focusing is a part of Emotion Focused Therapy and is often used in conjunction with other techniques within the therapy.
Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy comes from the pioneering work of philosopher and psychologist Eugene Gendlin at the University of Chicago, where he collaborated with Carl Rogers – The Focusing Institute
Mindfulness (including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) is a way of facilitating greater awareness and acceptance of difficult and painful feelings so that they have less influence over your life, allowing you to clarify what is meaningful to you thus enhancing and enriching the way you live your life. Mindfulness allows us to sit with whatever is present for us and accepting it as it unfolds. Mindfulness techniques can be used on their own or in conjunction with other emotion focused principles or expressive therapies, in the safety of the therapeutic relationship. www.actmindfully.com.au
Expressive Therapies/ Sandplay Therapy
I incorporate aspects of expressive therapies into my work including techniques from creative arts therapy and Sandplay Therapy. Art Therapy techniques encourage people to express and understand their inner world and emotions through the creative process of painting, clay sculpture, drawing, collage, doodling etc. If appropriate, I will encoporate expressive arts techniques into the counselling session in order to enhance the therapeutic process and to facilitate the client’s emotional awareness and expression.
Sandplay Therapy is deep transformative soul work, in which the client is given the possibility to work towards inner healing and growth through a process of play with figures in a tray of sand, which sets up a world corresponding to this inner world. The process of individuation, or working towards one’s true and whole self, is enhanced and brought forward. Sandplay Therapy is a gentle and effective way of working with people of all ages to explore and express their inner world and experiences in the safety of the therapeutic relationship. stanza.asn.au
QUALIFICATION DETAILS
Qualifications & Affiliations
Bachelor of Social Work (University of Victoria, Canada)
Graduate Diploma Counselling & Human Services (LaTrobe University, Melbourne)
Masters Counselling & Human Services (LaTrobe University)
Qualified Member of Australian Counselling Association (QMACA)
Counselling, Psychotherapy
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