One Life Counselling & Psychotherapy

Therapy is about finding your way again.
It’s about healing.
Uncovering the answers you already hold inside you.
And respecting the value of your life.

With counselling and psychotherapy, we can draw upon the things that really matter to you, and use them to navigate by.

We can unearth the strengths that have sustained you, and build on them.

You’ll learn more about who you are, what makes you happy, how to enhance your relationships, and how to make decisions you’re clear and content about.

You’ll begin to restore yourself and gather your resources for the journey ahead.

And then, one stepping-stone at a time, you can walk towards a life of meaning and purpose.

You’ve already taken the first step by deciding you want something to change. That’s often the hardest step.

If you’re ready to take the next step out of pain and towards healing, contact me.

I look forward to working with you.

About Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar

Grafton & Sydney counsellor & psychotherapist

I’m a fully qualified counsellor and psychotherapist with accredited training and extensive counselling experience. I’m also a Cancer Counselling Professional.

I believe that you are the expert on your life, so I tailor a range of counselling and psychotherapy styles to meet your needs.

These therapies and strategies can offer you emotional relief and a safe place to explore the issues you face. They’ll create an island of time just for you, so you can draw breath, and shed some light on the answers you already carry inside you. And find new ones.

In case you’re interested in the names of these therapies, they include person-centred therapy, narrative therapy, existential psychotherapy, family systems therapy, solution-focused therapy as well as aspects of mindfulness, cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and art therapy. Basically, all that means is that I can help you find your way out of pain and back to a life that’s meaningful and fulfilling for you.

It’s all about drawing on your life experiences, building on those with some new ideas and perspectives, and creating a life that’s truly enriching and satisfying for you: enhancing your relationships, growing your self-esteem, removing the obstacles of old habits or thought patterns that might be letting you down, coping with life’s challenges, and learning more about who you are, what you want from life, and how to set all of that in motion.

So if you’re ready to step out of pain and into a richer life, contact me to book an appointment.

Gabrielle’s work

• Psychotherapist / counsellor in private practice in Grafton and Sydney
• Cancer Counselling Professional (cancer counsellor)
• Author of The Therapist Within blog at Psych Central
• Facilitator of telephone support groups at Cancer Council NSW
• Former Editor of The CAPA Quarterly, the journal of the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Association of NSW (CAPA)

Counselling / psychotherapy qualifications

• Graduate Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Dux) (JNI)
• Certificate in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST)
• Accreditation as a Lifeline Telephone Counsellor (+over 2 years’ experience)
• Statement of Attainment in Narrative Therapy (JNI)
• Knowing and Not Knowing: Spirituality, Intimacy and Psychotherapy (JNI)
• BA Fine Arts (Honours, Class 1, Dean’s Medal)
• BA Communications Studies

Ongoing professional development in counselling & psychotherapy

• Ongoing professional supervision (as per best practice therapy)
• E-therapy: Asynchronous Email/Web Board Therapy, Cyber-culture and Ethics (OTI)
• Legal & Ethical Considerations of Online Therapy Workshop (Online Therapy Inst)
• International Therapist Leadership Institute online conference 2011
• Narrative Therapy (Lifeline, 2-day training)
• Exercise the Mood: Exercise as a Treatment for Depression (Black Dog Inst)
• Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Dealing with Problem Gambling (CCWT)
• Working with Families where a Member has a Gambling Problem (CCWT)
• Dialogue with Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn: mindfulness and clinical applications (Westmead Hospital)
• Focusing and Gendlin’s Philosophy of the Implicit (Australian Existential Society)
• 11th Australian Palliative Care Conference
 • Brief Work with Unconscious Processes (CAPA)
• Language and Experience: weaving together Focusing and Narrative ideas (CAPA)
• The New Neurobiology and What it Means to Psychotherapy (CAPA)
• Inside Emotionally Focused Therapy (CAPA)
• Sexual Trauma Counselling (CAPA)
• Trauma and the Family Emotional Process (CAPA)

Professional membership

• Member of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA)
• Member of the Cancer Counselling Professionals
• Member of the International Society for Mental Health Online (ISMHO)

Gabrielle in the media

Read about why Gabrielle became a therapist in this Sydney Morning Herald article.
Read Gabrielle’s published articles and interviews here.

Counselling & psychotherapy services

There are a few different ways your counselling sessions can be organised:

• face-to-face counselling


• telephone counselling


• online counselling (via Skype or email)

And there are subsidies available if your counselling is about cancer.

Face-to-face counselling

Face-to-face counselling and psychotherapy sessions are 50 minutes.
Your confidentiality is always protected. Even online.

These sessions are tailored to your needs, and flow safely at your pace, so you can navigate through the issues in your life.

Some areas you might want to explore in your counselling sessions include:

• healing depression or anxiety


• resolving relationship dynamics


• coping with family challenges


• living with cancer


• caring for a loved one with cancer


• living with other chronic or terminal illness


• boosting your self-esteem


• recovering from abusive relationships


• reducing stress


• easing the pain of bereavement


• restoring yourself after grief or loss


• exploring fertility issues


• untangling your worries about pregnancy or birth


• restoring yourself after grief or loss


• finding a work-life balance


• living with physical pain


• living more mindfully


• making important decisions


• overcoming gambling problems


• learning from your life transitions


• sparking personal growth and development


• finding more meaning and purpose in your life


• exploring your identity, sexuality or spirituality


• discovering more about who you are and who you’re becoming


• and even facing your death or terminal illness prognosis on your terms.

If you’re ready to step out of pain and into a richer life, contact me.

Your first face-to-face counselling session

If you’ve never experienced counselling before, it can be a challenging thing to come to your first session. It’s fairly normal to feel a bit nervous or to wonder how you might start talking about the problems you face. It can help to know what to expect, so here’s an outline.

Remember, your first session is another step along your path to healing.

There’ll be a little paperwork, where you’ll be asked some general questions about your background and preferred contact details.

But it’s mainly a chance for you to outline your concerns and hopes, and to get a feel for how we might work together. The therapeutic relationship has been proven to be a pivotal factor in therapy, so it’s important for you to find out how comfortable you feel working with me.

With your permission, I may take some notes during our sessions. There’s also a notepad and pen for you to make notes, too, if you want.

Generally, sessions are weekly, but there’s always room to negotiate this according to your needs.

Similarly, the overall length of your therapy will depend on the issues you’re facing, the depth you prefer to work at, and the arrangements we’ll make accordingly.

Telephone counselling

Telephone counselling works really well for people who are living with illness or a disability, for people who are caring for a family member, or for people who are very busy.

Many of my clients prefer phone counselling, as it’s convenient, confidential and offers the privacy of doing this important therapeutic work from the comfort of your home. It also saves the time and trouble of having to travel to appointments. And if you live in a rural area, it can make counselling very accessible to you. 

Telephone counselling is also offered at a reduced rate, compared to face-to-face counselling.

If you’d like to talk together about how telephone counselling could work for you, just contact me.

Online counselling & email therapy

Are you ready for therapy, but just can’t find the time?
Are you looking for a cost effective form of counselling?
Then you’ll get a lot out of online therapy.

Online counselling is just another way to find your way out of pain and discover your answers to the problems you’re facing.

There’s something so powerful about putting things into words in all kinds of therapy. It helps stop your thoughts from churning around and around endlessly in your mind. It can help you suddenly see things clearly, which is often a huge relief. It sort of gives the problem a shape and turns it into something you can handle easier and navigate around. And then you can see your solutions more clearly, too.

Email counselling is just another way of doing this – through the written word, rather than the spoken word.

And it’s not new. Therapy was being done in writing from the very beginning, with many of Freud‘s clients only exchanging letters with him. It’s just that now we can do that online.

Email therapy works really well for all sorts of issues. And it’s up to you how long or how detailed you want the therapy to be. If you find you’ve resolved what you wanted to in one email exchange, that’s great. Or, you might want to continue working together for even more insights.

I offer email counselling to people throughout Australia and ex-pats in many other countries in the world.

Benefits of email counselling:

Convenience

• You can do your therapy from home or anywhere else that’s comfortable for you


• You save time by not having to travel to therapy


• You can access counselling even if you live in a rural area, if you’re overseas, or if it’s too difficult to travel right now (perhaps due to mobility issues or if you’re caring for young children)


• You can do your therapy any time of the day or night, so it works with your schedule


• You can take your time writing an email over however long you need to, returning to it a few times until you’ve finished


• You can email at the exact time a challenge strikes – so it’s there for you when you need it most


• This kind of convenience makes it especially useful if you’re very busy just now, if you’re finding it difficult to physically travel to therapy, or if you’re a new parent struggling to find childcare or much time to yourself.

Therapeutic benefits

• You’ll have time to really reflect on your situation and thoughts as you write them out, which is already an important step in getting closer to a solution


• You’ll also have some time before receiving my email to really contemplate what you’ve written, and to see if any new thoughts or behaviours arise after taking that step. Many people say that this time between emails is very helpful.


• You can re-read our emails again later for even more therapeutic benefit, which can help your new insights really ‘sink in’.


• You can come back to the questions or wonderings I may have asked you at later times, continuing to work on your issue long after we’ve completed the active email exchanges.


• You can work at your pace, choosing when to email and when to take a break for a while.

Security and privacy

• Email counselling offers a certain kind of anonymity which many people perfer.


• To protect your confidentiality online, I only use secure, encrypted emails for this work.


• If you don’t already have one, I’ll help you set up an encrypted email account, too.

How does it work?

Email therapy is simply another form of counselling.

It’s conducted in email exchanges.
A single email exchange is one therapeutic email from you and a reply therapeutic email from me. Generally, both these emails are up to around a page in length.

In your first email, you might want to give me an outline of the situation or problem you’re facing, how that feels for you, and what your hopes are.

Then, together, we can explore things like:

• how you can get untangled from the stress and pain


• how to support you through a difficult time


• what this situation really means for you


• how you’re responding to it – and what some other options might be which can help get you closer to what you actually want in your life


• who else is involved and how you see their role


• whether there might be certain thoughts or actions that could be sabotaging you, and how to overcome those


• whether there are any patterns to this situation that might throw some light on how to solve it


• how all of this might be happening in a greater context, such as within your family system, and how you can draw from that systemic context to find new perspectives and new solutions to the problems


• what some of your core values are, and how you can use them to make important decisions


• and how to look after yourself throughout this whole process.

During our email exchanges, I’ll probably share some therapeutic theories or techniques with you, so you can use them whenever you’d like to. And I’ll ask some therapeutic questions help you open up some new perspectives, so you can unlock some of the answers you already hold within you.

How to get started with email counselling

1. Just contact me via email and let me know you’d like to work together.


2. Within 1-3 business days you’ll receive a client intake form with some basic questions on it, including some background information and contact details. And if you don’t already have a secure email account with encryption (like Outlook), I’ll help you set up a secure, encrypted email account.


3. Then simply choose how many email exchanges you’d like for now, make your payment here (payment is required in advance), and you can get started on your first email.

When email therapy is not for you:

Your safety and wellbeing is my priority.

There are a few times email counselling may not be appropriate:

1. If you’re in a crisis situation, including any kind of abuse or domestic violence


2. If you need immediate crisis support


3. If you’re having suicidal thoughts, or thoughts of harming yourself or others.

Your client intake form will help us both know whether email counselling is a good option for you just now, or whether I can perhaps assist by suggesting other forms of support for the moment, until you might feel ready to try again later.

If you’re in crisis, please contact your doctor or a crisis centre in your local area:

In Australia, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
In any other country, visit Befrienders Worldwide or the International Association for Suicide Prevention to find your local services.

Cancer counselling

Subsidised or free counselling is available. Just ask…

Cancer can bring so many questions and worries and fears with it. And often, it arrives as a complete shock, seeming to turn everything upside down for a while. It can be hard to get your balance back again. And hard to know who to talk to about it all, especially when you might be worried about appearing ‘positive’ or ‘strong’ for your family and friends.

Whether you’ve been:

• recently diagnosed


• caring for a loved one with cancer


• worrying about upcoming tests or scans


• finding it hard to cope even though you’re now in remission


• faced with a new bend in your road with cancer


• or if you’ve been bereaved by a cancer-related experience

…it can bring incredible relief to talk it over with a cancer counselling professional.

Since 2009, I’ve worked with many hundreds of people living with cancer, in all its stages, as well as their carers and families. I’ve run literally hundreds of cancer support groups for Cancer Council NSW, for patients, carers and family, and for people who have been bereaved through cancer. So I’ve had the privilege of working with, and learning from, many many people and their personal experiences of living with cancer, as well as having the related formal training in counselling, psychotherapy and working as a Cancer Counselling Professional. So you’re in safe hands.

To help you through your path with cancer, I’ll use a range of therapeutic approaches, including mindfulness, Person-centred, Narrative, Existential and Solution-focused therapies, depending on what works best according to your situation and preferences.

My aim is to support you to help you find your balance again, find your own unique answers, and to navigate your very personal path through this challenging time of your life.

And, as I’m a member of the Cancer Counselling Professionals, your cancer counselling sessions with me can be subsidised up to the full amount (depending on your circumstances). Simply ask me about this option and we can get it organised.

My expertise includes:

• Dealing with diagnosis


• Coping with treatment


• Managing difficult emotions and fears


• Handling loss and change


• The impact on family, including children and young people


• Living life after remission


• Living with terminal or life-limiting illness


• Palliative care


• Facing end of life issues


• Death and dying


• Grief and bereavement

So, wherever you find yourself in relation to cancer, if you’d like to work together, I believe I can draw on my expertise and the life-experience of the many people I’ve had the honour of working with before, and help you through this time.

And if it’s easier for you to have your counselling over the telephone, because of distance or difficulty travelling, give me a call and we can arrange that for you, too.

Counselling fees

Cancer-related counselling

Cancer counselling may be subsidised or free.
Please speak with Gabrielle about these options when booking your appointment.

Face-to-face counselling

Individuals: $120.00
Couples/families: $180.00
Full-time students: $100.00
Concession card holders: $100.00

Telephone counselling

Individuals: $100.00

Skype counselling

Individuals: $100.00 

Email counselling

Email therapy takes place in email exchanges.
A single email exchange includes one email from you and one reply email from me.
(Emails containing administration details only are free).

Single email exchange: $70.00 AUD
3 email exchanges: $160.00 AUD
6 email exchanges:  $300.00 AUD
12 email exchanges:  $570.00 AUD

Medicare & insurance

Counselling and psychotherapy are not yet covered by Medicare. This has pros and cons.

One positive thing is that you don’t need a specific diagnosis or referral to become a client, and you won’t have a diagnosis listed on your medical and/or insurance record.

You may not be able to get a rebate on these counselling services (please check with your fund). However,  my fee is less than the Medicare gap fee which some practitioners charge.

Step into a richer life today

Contact me to see how counselling and psychotherapy can help.