Judith Grieve - Inner Life Works - Counselling & Yoga Mackay

Counselling & Psychotherapy

A confidential, compassionate environment where you will be heard.

Life has its joys and sorrows, ease and challenges for us all ...
Whilst you may be resilient most of the time ... sensitive support along the way can be helpful.

Your focus may be personal or workplace ... emotional stress, grief and loss, anxiety and depression ... loneliness ... relationship matters ... pain and illness ... facing challenges ... past or present distress ... anguish and despair ... dealing with crisis and change.

Every individual and relationship is unique so I listen to what issue/s are important to you, how they are impacting you and what changes you want to create.

Often our backgrounds, external pressure, lifestyles, relationships, our ways of perceiving and our patterns of relating impact us too. At times an issue in the present highlights a matter/matters impacting us from the past. We will discuss how to proceed. Exploring the background of the presenting difficulty is usually vital to self understanding, releasing held tension and enabling skills and confidence to maintain change.

Throughout our time together you will be supported to attend to your self care, deepen self awareness and understanding, increasingly let go unhelpful impacts from the past, as well as strengthening skills and confidence for living.

Relationship Counselling

Close relationships are precious ... offering friendship, intimacies, understanding, acceptance, appreciation and encouragement ... yet relationships require close care and attention to thrive. You may welcome help for the journey from romance ebbing to rekindling intimacy, from drifting apart to deepening connection, from heartache to healing hurts, from tension to compassion.

When supporting couples, I am an advocate for both of you and your relationship. Your aims may be to have support to deepen self awareness, identify relationship strengths alongside any difficulties impacting your relationship.  You may find it necessary to attend to healing past hurts as well as identify meaningful ways of being together to create the kind of relationship you both want in the future.

Every individual is unique and every relationship is unique.  As you deepen awareness of what is happening within and between you, you will recognise helpful and unhelpful patterns of perceiving and relating impacting you and your relationship. Throughout this process you are empowered to tend your personal wellbeing, supported to be compassionate with yourself and one another and empowered with skills and confidence to create a rich and rewarding relationship.

How may you benefit?

As an individual

Depending on your situation and your aims, these are some of the ways you may benefit from our time together:

• Balancing life, living mindfully
• Developing self acceptance
• Tending loneliness & isolation
• Coping with intense emotions
• Building emotional resilience
• Strategies to deal with a difficult situation
• Gently healing loss, past pain and suffering
• Finding your way with family
• Dealing with work difficulties
• Clarifying values that guide your choices
• Motivation moving forward with your goals
• Embracing your life's circumstances
• Improving communication
• Other life skills

How may you benefit?

If your focus is relationship matters

As an individual and/or couple, you may be at a stage where you wish to focus on one or more of the following to benefit you and your relationship:

• Exploring compatibility, getting to know each other
• Clarifying and reviewing values and expectations, important to ending tension
• What to consider when planning to live together
• Dealing with differences skillfully and resolving conflicts constructively
• Identifying unhelpful dynamics limiting emotional and physical intimacy and cultivating change
• Navigating life's significant changes with resilience ... births, illness, moving, work, caring for elderly parents, retirement
• Managing difficulties with extended family, friends or others
• Recovering after loss ... loss of a child, loss of work, separation, other losses
• Rebuilding trust and affection after a rift.

What to expect?

You will be heard and respected. Your concern/s and your aim are the focus. We will collaborate in choosing the best way forward.

Each session will focus on how you are progressing, what is important to you on the day alongside a continuing focus on your concern/s and your aim/s. Alongside reflecting and exploring changes at your own pace, there is an option for you to attend to some reading between sessions if you like to read.

For some it can be an easy step to seek assistance, for others a more difficult step. You are welcome to call to discuss how I may be of support to you. I can also offer to meet with you for 15 minutes to discuss your needs and if I may be of service to you. There is no fee for this.

On my approach

I am committed to empowering you! Whilst I utilise various counselling approaches, clinical research highlights that it is not specific techniques but the quality of relationship between a person and their therapist that is most beneficial. I love my work and it is an honour to journey with each person, supporting their commitment to transform suffering into greater peace.

I utilise various mindfulness based counselling approaches - cognitive, experiential (not experimental), emotional release techniques and creative arts therapy tools. I offer short and long term therapy for individuals and couples as well as workplace services.

I hold full clinical registration with the Psychotherapy and Counsellors Federation of Australia (PACFA) and attend to both personal and professional development.

Session Duration

Initial Sessions: I recommend allowing 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs.  In this session I am learning about you, the matter/s you want to focus on, your aims for counselling, discussing options as to how we might proceed together. You may welcome 2 hrs for this session if you live or work elsewhere.  You may also welcome the additional time to begin focusing on initial steps you can take.

Subsequent sessions:  Generally an 1 hour.  In particular circumstances I may recommend allowing 1.25 hrs or 1.5 hrs and will discuss this with you before.  You may simply welcome the extended time.

Simple matters may require one session, other matters more. I am committed to empowering you and supporting you according to your needs and at your pace.

Fees & Health Funds

Health Funds

The following funds offer rebates for counselling at certain levels of cover.  Please check with your fund as their provisions and rebates can change.

• Medibank Private
• BUPA
• Police Health
• Emergency Service Health
• CUA
• Phoenix
• St Lukes 
•  

Session Fees

I offer a sliding scale of fees / flexible fees based on circumstance. Please feel free to discuss your personal circumstances and fee reductions if you:

• receive income support
• earn less than the average wage
• are adversely impacted financially by COVID-19.

If our focus is at all work related, the fee is tax deductible.

Initial Session 
Standard Fee: 1.5 hours is $175 ;  2 hours is $235  

Subsequent Sessions
Standard Fee:  1 hour $115 ;  1.5 hours $175; 2 hrs $230

Regular Sessions
5 x 1 hour sessions $550; 10 x 1 hour sessions prepaid is $990.

Mobile Sessions / Home Visit
Add Travel Fee:  Mackay $70/hr (Min $40) 
Add Travel Fee:  Regional $100/hr

Testimonials

"I lacked self confidence and was fairly anxious. After some time dealing with the past, my beliefs, I have greater self acceptance and life is generally easier."
- Anon

"You have helped me so much - I am ever grateful."
- Kim

"Anger impacted my work and personal life. I now understand where the anger comes from, what triggers it and I'm dealing with difficult situations without reacting."
- Peter

"We have turned our relationship around. We were heading for separation and now we are communicating a lot better and a lot happier."
- T & J

"We had separated and now we are learning more about each other and rebuilding our relationship. We even celebrated Valentine's Day together."
- D & R

"We were growing apart, working opposite shifts and not communicating well. Now we are making time to be together and communicating a lot better."
- N & M