PRICING
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The cost for a 55-minute individual session is $240 (Medicare rebate of $131.65 available)
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A couples session, which lasts 90-minutes, is $360
If you receive a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, you are entitled to a Medicare rebate of $131.65 per session for 10 sessions per calendar year meaning you pay a gap of $108.35. The full session fee is payable at the time of your appointment and Medicare will reimburse your nominated bank account within 48 hours.
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Individual supervision is $180 (+GST) per hour and group supervision is $300 (+GST) per hour.
THERAPIES
The team offer therapy for individuals, couples, families and within networks. These therapies include:
Eye-Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing
Eye-Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing (EMDR) is a form of therapy that posits that symptoms of distress are often caused by unresolved difficult experiences from the past. These experiences can be extreme single events (e.g., a car accident, an assault; PTSD) or the cumulative result of difficult childhood, adolescent and early adulthood events (i.e., complex PTSD).
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The core theory of EMDR is that the human mind has the natural capacity to heal from wounding experiences. As with the body, the mind naturally heals when a wound has been cleared of impediments and in EMDR this is achieved via special techniques that allow for the processing and clearing of distressing memories. Specifically, EMDR uses a structured 8 step process to access difficult memories at the same time as we are given a basic task - like watching the therapist’s fingers move back and forth horizontally. It is thought that the task of tracking the finger movements allows the brain to work through the memory in a comprehensive way, extracting a deeper meaning from the experience and allowing the memory to move from short to long term storage in the brain.
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What may take many years to heal in traditional forms of therapy can be resolved in a much shorter time frame using these techniques. There is a large body of evidence supporting this way of conducting therapy leading important organisations like the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organisation and the US Department of Defence to identify EMDR as a treatment that works for complex psychological difficulties like those described above.
Schema Therapy (ST) is an integrative form of therapy that brings together psychoanalytic theory, attachment theory, cognitive behavioural and mindfulness therapies, Gestalt Therapy and other experiential forms of therapy. ST focuses on the impact of unmet early life core needs (e.g., for love, atunement and validation) on our sense of self-worth, how we relate socially and how we experience the world (e.g., as unsafe). ST has strong evidence in treating the impacts of early life complex trauma, which is often the underlying driving cause of many symptoms of distress.
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The core idea of ST is that our identify is made of a number of different parts mostly formed by our early life experiences. Some parts of us hold our painful, vulnerable feelings, others can be critical, harsh and demanding, while others have functioned to try to protect us. In ST, many of our life difficulties are thought to be the result of an over active critical part of self along with the protective parts of self actually blocking us from moving towards those things that will bring richness and meaning to life.
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ST focuses on developing and strengthening those parts of us that are healthy, self-compassionate and wise, while giving us more access to parts of self that are playful, creative, energetic and spontaneous. The therapy uses experiential techniques in order to access the parts of us that hold painful feelings in order to heal and move towards our therapy goals.
Schema Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a form of therapy that focuses on learning varied skills and identifying one’s most important values in order to live a richer, fuller life. The skills component of ACT includes learning a range of mindfulness skills in order to better handle patterns of difficult thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness is a bit of a cultural buzz word at the moment, but it essentially means acting skilfully by turning attention to the present moment of our lives with openness, curiosity and non-judgment. This is a useful approach to our lives as it allows us to step back from patterns of difficult thinking and feeling and not react in our usual rapid, habitual ways - ways which often contribute to our difficulties in life.
ACT has a strong emphasis on identifying our most important values as a means to find direction and meaning in life and to connect to our inner motivation and energy to engage our challenges and lives fully. Both the mindfulness skills and values work are woven together to help people get unstuck from entrenched patterns, while moving towards those things that are most meaningful for them.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is an effective approach to psychotherapy for a range of mental and emotional health issues, including anxiety and depression. CBT aims to help us to identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and to learn practical self-help strategies. These strategies are designed to bring about immediate positive changes in your quality of life. CBT can be useful for anyone who needs support to challenge unhelpful thoughts that are preventing them from reaching their goals or living the life they want to live. CBT aims to show us how our thinking affects your mood. It can teach us to think in a less negative way about ourselves and our life. It is based on the understanding that thinking negatively is a habit that, like any other habit, can be broken.
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
Intensive
Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Intensive Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) is a brief form of psychotherapy, developed by Dr. Habib Davanloo. In ISTDP, the basic theory is that most psychological problems occur due to the emotional effects of disrupted attachments. Interruptions and trauma to human attachments may cause intense feelings that may become blocked and avoided. When things later in life stir up these complex feelings, anxiety and defences may be ‘activated’.
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The anxiety and defences may be unconscious to the person experiencing them, and the result is a range of physical and psychological symptoms, and interpersonal issues. Often people with anxiety, depression, substance abuse, somatisation, and eating disorders have this emotional blockage. These unconscious processes can also lead to health problems in bodily systems, including the cardiovascular system, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory system, immune system, and muscular system.
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ISTDP is an interactive therapy where both the therapist and client work together to identify the way the person experiences their anxiety and the defences which arise to block the painful feelings from surfacing. When these feelings are experienced, anxiety and defences decrease. They can then see the driving emotional forces that were being defended. Working through the avoided feelings can often bring about symptom improvement, behavioural changes and help to develop healthy relationships.
Open Dialogue is both a way of structuring mental health services to be more responsive to people’s needs, and a philosophical approach to being with people in distress, being in dialogue with the person’s social network. Open Dialogue originated in Finland in the 1980s and has been spreading around the world, partly because the results have been impressive, including much lower rates of medication use and hospitalisation..
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In practice, Open Dialogue is structured around ‘network meetings’ which bring together whoever might have a useful perspective on what is happening, usually with at least two Open Dialogue practitioners. In practice, this often means family members, but it can include whoever the person feels would be useful, for example a neighbour, case worker, teacher, or friend. The idea is that there are lots of different perspectives and it can be extremely helpful to talk together, to listen to all of these different perspectives. Most decisions are made in network meetings which allows the conversation to remain open.
Open Dialogue
Internal Family Systems
Internal Family Systems (IFS) holds the view that all humans are consisted of multiple "parts" of self rather than there just being one single consistent self. When we examine our own lives we can see our multiple parts in action easily and in myriad ways. For example, for most of us, the self that we are when we are speaking with a trusted loved one is very different from the self we inhabit when we are speaking with an authority figure. This multiplicity of selves is considered a completely normal aspect of being human.
However, as we grow through infancy, into childhood, adolescence and young adulthood some of us experience mistreatment and our core needs are not met adequately by those around us. As such, our parts are often forced into extreme roles, which allow us to survive and to navigate our early life experiences. However, our parts are often stuck in these roles as we move through our lives and what were once parts playing essential roles in our early environment, now function to block us from growing and moving forward in key life areas.
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IFS posits that beneath our multiplicity of parts lies a calm, compassionate, creative, curious and courageous Self. This fundamental Self is unblemished by our life experiences no matter how severe and can be readily accessed through therapy. When we can reconnect to our deepest Self we have great capacity for healing and growth.
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