Good Counsel

ABOUT US

From a background in Education, Visual Arts and Art Therapy (Bachelor of Education/Visual Arts at UNSW) to fifteen years in the Wellness and Spa Industry Shar Votano has enjoyed an incredibly rich journey that has given her a wealth of insight and experiences into the evolving area of Health and Wellbeing.

Through creating and implementing holistic health and lifestyle programs abroad and managing and designing concept Resort Spa, retreats and wellness centres in Australia, Thailand, the Middle East, The Maldives and Indian Ocean Region Shar worked alongside practitioners in modalities such as Ayurveda, Traditional Eastern and also Western health practices.

This experience and fusion of international traditions gave Shar an inspired perspective of Health and wellbeing and a desire to undertake counselling/psychology training and further studies in recent years. 

Shar created Good Counsel to be a professional, private retreat space for workshops and seminars and to provide counselling services to children, adults and seniors.

Shar takes a common sense approach to counselling and tailors her methodologies to suit the client providing effective counselling strategies to assist individuals, couples and families to move forward and through difficulties to reach a better quality of life.

Counselling Approaches include:

• Rogerian Person Centred approach


• Solutions Focused Therapy


• Gestalt Therapy


• Family Systems Counselling


• Cognitive behavioural Therapy


• Narrative Therapy 


• Art Therapy


• Time Line Therapy


• The Holistic Counselling Model

It is her compassion, positive regard and ongoing belief in the clients’ ability and capacity to heal and make positive and lasting changes within themselves that inspires her daily counselling work.

At Good Counsel we believe in the holistic health model of the unison and relationship of Body, mind and Spirit. The balance of keeping active, being connected to nature and establishing a work life balance.

The small and dedicated team at Good Counsel are grateful to be living on the Northern Beaches and to provide mental health and wellbeing services to people of a variety of ages and stages of life.

Quote from me...

“At good counsel, I provide clients a confidential and a non judgemental safe space to explore whatever is concerning them or causing distress or discomfort.

My counselling style and approach is person centred as it is my belief that with the appropriate skills and tools, the client is empowered to make their own positive changes in their lives.”

Individuals

At Good Counsel we provide a professional, confidential and safe envionment for a wide range of individuals.

We provide professional counselling on an individual basis to people of all ages and stages of life.

As a caring and qualified professional, counsellors work with children, adolescents, single people, couples and seniors at all stages of life and for a wide variety of issues and concerns.

In today's society there are no longer the rigid rules as to what constitutes a "family' or what is considered to be "normal".

At Good Counsel we embrace diversity and are open minded and non judgemental.

Counselling can help us all through emotional problems, parenting challenges or responsibilities, marital problems, the complexities of blending families, living together with others or life as a single person.

Children

A child’s safety is imperative and first and foremost in counselling children.

Counselling may include one or both parents depending on the age of the child and the issues involved.

The first priority before counselling will be to assess the situation and needs of the child, the extent of their issues and behaviours and whether they are at any risk.

In counselling the child will be encouraged to express and explore their own reality, how the world is for them and what concerns them. This may be done through speaking, or with younger children through games, play, sand play or art therapy. In this safe and supportive environment, they are able to travel at their own pace.

The child or adolescent will be encouraged to talk about feelings, thoughts and needs, which they may not be able or comfortable to express in front of their parents or friends.

Through the process the deeper motivation for a child’s behaviour will become evident. Emotional issues can be explored and practical real-life solutions offered.

Parents will be invited to participate as necessary and when it’s appropriate.

Happy, well-adjusted and resilient children have skills that they can use to communicate what’s going on for them.

What is more important is that they have the capacity to ask for help when they need it, but sometimes, children lack the ability to convey things that have affected them.

There is no judgement of abilities or parenting styles in this process, our common goal is to assist the child in their mental health, happiness and their right to thrive.

Where necessary therapy may include the parents to form a plan to address particular areas of concern and ensure the health and well being of your family.

Adolescence

With consistent care, love and attention is provided, children thrive and are able to move through their developmental stages towards independence.

The transition into adulthood is not an easy journey.

Adolescent depression and anxiety is at an all time high in all communities and does not discriminate.

It is imperative that teenagers or preteens have a safe environment to be listened to and that they get the professional care required to ensure that they are safe and to help them safely transition through adolescence or particular times of needs.

We are committed and dedicated to provide our young people with common sense coping strategies and mental health assistance.

Establishing trust is key for the teenager to be able to confide in a counsellor and be assured they have complete confidentiality particularly in regard to their teachers, parents and friends.

A host of counselling strategies may be used to encourage communication such as role playing, art therapy, solutions focused therapies, CBT etc and will be tailored to suit the need of each individual.

For older teens engaging in senior studies relaxation techniques and adopting healthy coping and calming strategies and having a strong "mental health game plan" for tough times will be explored.

The ability for the teenager to self protect and manage their exposure to outside influences such as social media that will allow then to build resilience to not allow external forces to adversely affect their wellbeing and their own happiness.

Connectivity in today's world is necessary, but helping the individual not "let it run the show", and giving them their own boundaries and tools they can implement when connectivity becomes dysfunctional or all consuming is key.

Good Counsel facilitates holiday workshops for children and specific adolescent workshops to provide our young people with meaningful activities and a private space to engage with others and address issues and concerns they are faced with as they traverse the teenage years.

Families/Couples

There are no rules today for what a normal family looks like.

There is no blame or shaming in family therapy as a family is viewed as a sacred system where each family member is a valued member of that system.

When there are issues it brings to light the areas of the system that require attention, new strategies and a fresh approach for all family members to resolve conflict and create a more harmonious and loving family unit. These are thoroughly and respectfully explored in family therapy.

When it works, family is our security and our safe-haven where we develop functional patterns of relating to others, as well as expectations of how others will relate to us. This then becomes the internal template for what we can expect from others in the world. Early childhood experiences with primary caregivers (often but not always parents) shape our expectations of future relationships.

When family relationships are conflicted and unresolved, they may fail to provide the safety and security necessary for a child to go out into the world.

Parental conflict, conflict between children and parents, or between siblings, or with in-laws, can all be major obstacles to the family functioning well and its members being happy.

The Blended Family

Bringing two families together under the one roof can be ambitious and challenging but also a harmonious and successful union.

The blending of ‘your’ and ‘my’ children into a new family is something that requires discussion and a strong game plan before the merging of families.

New couples sometimes may assume that because their chosen partner is a suitable person for them, their respective children will view their new parents in the same way.

The success of your blended family depends on having a clear plan involving the co-operation of all family members. To do this requires new skills, discussions and a well-thought-out plan. 

Family counselling can be a great help in making it possible to harmoniously form such a plan in a way which includes everyone. 

Step Parenting

Every family situation is unique and step parents play just as important a role in family life as biological parents, they are often primary carers and also provide role modelling and support to children.

At Good Counsel we assist new step-parents, assist issues that arise in relationships and give support and strategies to ensure healthy relationships between partners and children.

Couples

Humans never outgrow the need for secure relationships.

After 30 years of scientific research, clinical studies, laboratory experiments, and applied therapies into attachment and adult bonding, we now know that love is logical, practical and understandable.

Every relationship is unique and has its own life and characteristics that define it.

In couples counselling we explore the relationship dynamics and all aspects of the couple that make the relationship tick and functional and all aspects that make it dysfunctional at times and create hurt and pain for each other.

As every couple is truly unique, the relationship is treated with respect and as “a sacred system’, that can be explored, reviewed and with new wisdom and a new dynamic bring to life new ways of being, to strengthen and enhance the quality of life for each person.

Seniors

In our modern world, ageing has become something to fear rather than an inevitable and natural part of life.

The wisdom of age and experience is unseen and often greatly undervalued.

Our middle and later years can be a time of new beginnings, coupled with the increased maturity to enable us to make the most out of life.

Counselling gives you the chance to explore what this new role looks like for you and find your own way to approach ageing.

There are many other factors connected with getting older which you can explore in counselling, admitting and releasing difficult feelings, coming to terms with now, acknowledging, celebrating your past achievements and contributions, exploring the opportunities which lie within new roles and finding a path forward into the future.

The ageing process: through expressing and exploring our feelings about the ageing process, you can learn to soften and open up into an acceptance of physical, mental and emotional change and ageing, rather than hardening and resisting it.

This may involve looking at illness, pain or physical limitations and at what health, vitality and well-being mean now, in the context of middle-age or old-age.

It can help to begin by asking ourselves questions such as ‘What now?’ ‘What next?’ or ‘What else do I want to do with my life?’

If your life has been focused on raising your family, perhaps it’s time to focus on yourself. Perhaps there are goals you still long to fulfill, or desires that it’s time to realize and make possible.

In many ways life is a series of roles – student, spouse, parent, grandparent and so on.

Middle-age and old-age are also roles, though ones for which we may not be prepared for and which there is little guidance insociety today.

Contact us today for more information.