Collaborative Counsellor

About

My business is Professional Counselling services both in NSW and also nationally through telephone and email services.

I deliver both corporate and private counselling services as part of my practice.

My counselling focus is “the client is the person whom I work in collaboration with to attain the best possible outcome for their current issue as well as their long term future and goals”. Many of my clients return once their therapy on a particular problem has been addressed, just to check that they are going well or when something new is happening in their lives, to ensure they are handling it in the best possible way.

I am a Clinical Member of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Association and also listed on the National Register of Psychotherapists and Counsellors Federation of Australia.

Current Work Focus and Specialty Areas:

I offer a diverse range of specialist counselling services in relationships, grief and loss, counselling families, children & teenagers, couples counselling, life coaching, anxiety and depression, mindfulness based therapy and collaborative divorce coaching.

In addition to the above I still have an involvement in the corporate/not for profit sectors of industry, which includes mediation, supervision for employees in mental health sector and employee counselling.

Services

Family Therapy

Families are a complex system of individuals that make up the ‘family unit’. As relationship difficulties occur in families, it is not just the parents that are affected, but the children will also be impacted usually in a very negative way. Through counselling we engage in change and in doing so, we then alter the dynamics in the family system, as each family member is subjected to the change in the family environment. Sometimes this can be responsible for major disruption in the family unit My family therapy approach is treatment of the whole family (as required) as a family unit to support the family and individuals in recognising and understanding the change dynamic that is occurring and in being able to express their fears and concerns around the change in a safe, professional and empathetic environment.

Relationship Counselling

Many of my clients tell me that making that first step to seek some help to have an improved relationship is one of the hardest things they have had to do in their lives. The reason for this is often able to be determined as fear of admitting to failure in something that is a highly important element for many of us in our lives. Countless clients have told me their stories of how they have a very successful job/career path/sporting achievements etc, yet in their relationship they really struggle to have the relationship they would ideally choose for themselves.

Mediation

People in conflict tend not to communicate effectively and poor communication can cause disputes to occur or escalate. Mediation can contribute expertise and experience in all models and styles of negotiation so that the parties are able to negotiate more constructively, efficiently and productively. It involves bringing direction and finesse to the negotiation efforts of the parties. Mediation is a catalysts for creative problem solving.

Life Coaching

As a professional counsellor, I believe that wellbeing is achieved in life when you are feeling a sense of balance in all areas that impact on who you are and how you see yourself as the person whom you are and/or aspire to become. These areas are all inclusive of career aspirations, physical, mental and emotional health, family and friendships, sporting and all other pursuits of leisure time. In determining the unique goals aspired to by each of us, we can target those aspects of our life which we would like to further develop as well as recognising and providing intrinsic reward for the achievements as they are reached at each stage in the preparation, planning and outcomes measurement of each designed activity. A clear goal for your future vision is something I can help you achieve.

PAIN MANAGEMENT CENTRE

At COLLABORATIVE COUNSELLING we understand that pain can be very disempowering and can impede even the most basic tasks in a client’s life, sometimes leaving the person with the intense and often chronic pain unable to function in even the most basic physical and relationship tasks and activities.

An example of a client’s pain management therapy includes:

• Relaxation training


• Collaborative goal setting for desired outcomes


• Activity pacing techniques


• Mindfulness Therapy to change attitude to pain


• A new way of accepting what cannot be changed but can be managed


• Working with the family unit on acceptance and loss issues associated with the change in circumstances

Collaborative Divorce Practice

In Collaborative Family Law, the services of divorce coaches or family consultants, are sometimes used to help the parties clarify their needs, listen to the other's needs, and stay focused throughout the negotiations, all of which substantially reduce the normal anxiety often experienced in the divorce process and helps allow the co-creation of a resolution.

Children & Teenagers

Children learn most about life and relationships by watching their parents relate to each other and to them (the children and teenagers in the family). From this family system comes an understanding in each child’s world of the patterns of life’s behaviour as they perceive they should be played out.

Mindfulness Therapy

Our minds are incredible living things. They are linked to our emotional response, our sensory input and output, the conscious and unconscious regulation of our organs and glands, our breathing, our stress triggers and our thinking mind where we ponder the future, maybe ruminate about the past and develop ideas and belief systems

Grief and Loss

Grief and Loss can take many forms. When we experience a significant loss in our lives, how we handle it can have a long term effect on our personal behaviours and relationships. It is regularly the basis of failed relationships.

Loss does not always result in death. Loss can take many forms including:

• Loss of job


• Loss of health


• Loss of certainty of the future due to relationship breakdown


• Loss of certainty of permanence due to financial losses


• Loss of a partner through illness leading to uncertainty about any future happiness


• Loss of closeness of a family member who moves interstate or overseas


• Loss of a child through stillbirth, illness or accident

Workcover Accredited Services Provision

Workcover Accredited Services ProvisionThe Collaborative Counsellor team have counsellors who are WorkCover Accredited Providers. This ensures effective service delivery of appropriate and effective intervention for WorkCover clients.