Counselling in Sydney

What is Counseling?

Counselling is usually short-term treatment providing guidance or advice about a decision that needs to be made or a course of action to undertake within a situation. This can involve developing a treatment plan to heal mental, emotional and behavioural concerns. Like psychotherapy, counseling is a professional and confidential service. It offers an objective perspective that enables you to gain insights and strategies to support you to move forward positively in your life.

Personal counseling provides an opportunity to be listened to while you talk about challenges you are experiencing. As a counsellor we help you find options that will support positive change. Within a counseling session many tools can assist the therapy process, such as drawing, painting, story telling and play therapy. Art and play therapy are gentle ways of helping people to communicate with ease. It enables both adults and young people to naturally express themselves, and to feel understood without the constraints of having to communicate with words.

What is Psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is usually long term therapy that involves getting to the core of your difficulties and how you are relating to yourself and others. As a therapist we can support you to gain an objective scope of your present issues and explore how they are impacting upon your enjoyment of life. This therapy process allows you to disengage from old habitual patterns and create a new perspective on your life. Psychotherapy can help you understand what makes you feel positive and strong and also to recognize your weak points and sources of anxiety. As you identify your emotions, thoughts and body sensations you develop a resilience that helps you to deal with difficult situations.

We work from the Hakomi and Sensorimotor psychotherapy models both of which draw on a psychodynamic perspective of psychotherapy. A psychodynamic method focuses on automatic processes shown in your current behaviour. This approach increases your self awareness and your understanding of the impact of your past circumstances on your present behaviour. It enables you to explore and observe unresolved issues and symptoms arising from past dysfunctional relationships. In conclusion a psychodynamic approach supports you to understand the cause of distressing emotions by being curious and exploring your unconscious needs and defenses safely.

How Sensorimotor psychotherapy is a talking therapy and a body therapy

Sensorimotor psychotherapy combines both a talking therapy and body therapy to heal trauma and developmental wounds. Sensorimotor psychotherapy applies specific techniques to help the client understand and process their thoughts and emotions.  As therapists we can decipher when a person is struggling with a trauma that arises from a shock or from a developmental wound.  The direction the therapist takes in working with the client is determined by the client's presentation of either having a developmental or trauma wound.

For example stabilizing the client by working with their body is a powerful tool to relieve them from having panic attacks or anxious feelings.  Once the client feels more comfortable in their body the work of processing the trauma memory can begin.  In addition when working with developmental wounds the therapy focuses on the way the client senses and relates to their body and the therapist as this reveals the client's relationship patterns.