Adult Psychotherapy
I offer adult clients' regular psychotherapy sessions. These can be of shorter or longer term nature depending on the clients' particular difficulties and what is needed to help.
My primary therapeutic model is contemporary psychoanalytic and relational. This means that my main objective over the course of therapy is to stay attentive and empathic to clients' subjective experiences in key relationships and also in their engagement with me during therapy sessions. I then support and encourage clients to reflect on and gain insight into how these relational dynamics are linked to internal emotional conflicts, often originating from unresolved family of origin issues. The overriding aim of therapy then is to assist clients to break entrenched relational patterns that are self- limiting and sabotaging, gain more control over their emotional selves and ways of relating and ultimately become increasingly able to have consistent recourse to fulfilling ways of being and engaging.
As an adult psychotherapist I have extensive experience in helping adults with the following type of difficulties:
Depression
Bipolar disorder
Anxiety including panic attacks, generalised anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder and phobias
Recovery from trauma, including unresolved childhood trauma
Relationship difficulties
Work related difficulties
Low self esteem
Bereavement and loss
Eating Disorders
Identity Issues
Sexuality and gender related issues
Life adjustment and transition issues
Psychosomatic illness
Please contact me to book an initial session to explore the prospect of ongoing psychotherapy.
Couples Therapy
I offer couples an opportunity to work through and overcome chronic and entrenched problems in their relationship that detract from the quality of emotional and physical intimacy between them and can threaten relationship breakdown. I provide the couple with a non-judgemental, safe and containing space where painful and complex emotional issues that arise regularly in their relationship can be aired and thought through. This process then leads to enhanced mutual empathy and compassion, breaking the former acrimony and antagonism and improving the overall emotional communication in the couple relationship. Ultimately as a consequence frayed or lost intimacy and connection is then repaired and restored.
Through my experience in working with couples, I have found that couple therapy can help couples with the following sort of difficulties:
Inability to communicate emotionally and meaningfully
Barriers to emotional, sexual and physical intimacy
Battling with infertility and IVF related experiences
Mental health difficulties in the couple.
Difficulties in parenting together as a couple
Relationship under threat or breaking down
Dealing with traumatic life events as a couple
Coping with infertility as a couple
Please contact me to discuss the possibility of engaging my professional help as a couple.
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy
I provide psychotherapy sessions to children and adolescents (including young adults) of a longer and shorter term nature. As per my training, the underlying therapeutic model I draw on is contemporary psychoanalytic and relational. In line with this, I endeavour to help the child or teenager better recognise and acknowledge their emotions and responses in interpersonal encounters within the family or with peers and teachers and understand these within the context of their personal history and what they have made of this. I have found that it is through such enhanced emotional recognition and understanding that children and teenagers have greater control over feelings and responses and are then better able to regulate themselves in relationships.
My therapeutic approach takes account of the fact that unlike adults, children and teenagers find it hard to articulate themselves through words and talking. Consequently I provide them with more age-appropriate means of self-expression and communication, such as art or play.
My approach also acknowledges that children and teenagers are still fundamentally impacted upon by how they are regarded and related to by their parents and carers. As such I involve parents in their child's therapy process by providing parents with separate sessions that run parallel to their child's therapy. These parent sessions are aimed at helping parents think more deeply about their child's emotional and psychological struggles and following this what their child may need from them. This means that parents' responses to their child are much more likely to be sensitive to the child's feelings and needs and so more effective and supportive.
With regard to children and adolescent I have extensive experience in helping with the following issues and problems:
Anxiety problems in children and adolescents such as specific phobias, separation anxiety, sleeping difficulties, bed wetting, performance anxiety and social anxiety
Childhood and adolescent depression
Dealing with parental separation and divorce
Children and adolescents adjusting to living in blended families
Bullying and social ostracisation
Psychosomatic complaints and illness in children and adolescents
School resistance and refusal
Self harm behaviours
Eating Disorders and body image issues
Identity issues, including struggles with sexuality and gender identity
Bereavement and loss
Children and adolescents struggling with insecurities and low self esteem
Children and adolescents living in out of home care and adopted children
Recovery from trauma and/ or abuse
Children and adolescents displaying behavioural difficulties at home or at school.
Children and adolescents with social communication difficulties; Autism and Aspergers.
Psychological difficulties related to ADHD
Psychological issues related to disability, including learning disabilities
I welcome you contacting me with your concerns for your child or teenager to set up an appointment to discuss whether psychotherapy is indicated.
Parent Consultation
I understand that being a parent to a baby, a young child or a teenager can be a confusing and at times overwhelming task. As a means of helping parents with the enormous emotional strain that this life role can bring, I offer parents a regular therapeutic space to think in depth about their emotional responses to their child/ children and how these can be understood and contained so as to enhance the overall relationship they have with their child.
Sometimes this is done in conjunction with their child being in individual therapy with me as a support to the therapeutic work with their child. At other times, I work with parents irrespective of whether their child is in individual therapy, to guide and support them in their role as parents.
I can offer parents support around the following:
Developing a more empathic understanding of your child's inner life; including their emotions, ways of thinking, worries and aspirations.
Understanding the emotional meaning of, and communication behind, children's and teenagers' troubling and troublesome behaviour.
Setting limits and boundaries for children and adolescents more effectively.
Parenting better together as a couple.
Understanding how family of origin issues can interfere with you being the most empathic and effective parent you can be and helping you overcome such obstacles.
Helping toddlers and preschool children deal with developmental and family challenges, such as the birth of a sibling, toilet training, starting daycare and preschool.
Perinatal issues such as postnatal depression and adjusting to the emotional upheaval of being new parents.
Please contact me to discuss engaging in parent sessions.
Clinical Supervision and Teaching
I appreciate the imperative for mental health professionals and educators to think about the emotionally impactful work they do and how essential regular supervision is in this respect. As such, I provide clinical supervision to psychologists, adult and child psychotherapists, art therapists, intern psychologists and trainee child psychotherapists, child psychiatrists as well as other mental health professionals. I am an AHPRA approved supervisor for psychology and clinical psychology interns.
I offer psychodynamically oriented supervision, with a focus on working together to understand your client’s experience and what they are trying to communicate to you. Particularly important aspects of supervisory work include attending to the psychotherapeutic process, especially the dynamic transference and counter-transference.
Please contact me if you are interested in discussing receiving supervision.
I also provide supervision and consultation to schools to assist them in thinking about children and adolescents who have become difficult to manage in the school environment and as such are a growing concern for teachers.
In addition, I have experience as a seminar leader and teacher of various clinical and professional modules through the Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ICAPP) as well as previously on the Masters in Psychoanalytic Developmental Studies at the Anna Freud Centre, London
I would be pleased to take on any new teaching or training opportunities.
Benefit from my professional experience and wide range of psychological services.
Psychotherapy takes place in the overlap of two areas of playing, that of the patient and that of the therapist. Psychotherapy has to do with two people playing together. The corollary of this is that where playing is not possible then the work done by the therapist is directed towards bringing the patient from a state of not being able to play into a state of being able to play.
Donald Winnicott
About Me
I am a registered clinical psychologist as well a psychoanalytic psychotherapist working with adults, couples, children and adolescents. I am registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and a member of the Institute of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ICAPP) and the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) in the UK.
I initially qualified as a clinical psychologist and subsequent to this undertook an extensive clinical training in child and adolescent psychotherapy through the Tavistock Clinic and British Association of Psychotherapists in the UK.
Following my training, I worked for a number of years in child and adolescent mental health clinics in the public sector in London. Here I provided therapy to children and teenagers with a wide range of emotional and mental health difficulties as well as support to their parents.
Since moving to Sydney in 2011, I have worked in private practice where I provide individual psychotherapy to children, teenagers and adults as well as couple therapy and consultation to parents. In addition I provide supervision to mental health clinicians and teach at the institute of Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ICAPP) in Sydney.
I provide more intensive and longer term psychotherapy as well as shorter term and supportive therapeutic interventions, depending on what fits the particular client.
My primary model is contemporary psychoanalytic and relational. As such, whether I am working with a child, a teenager, an adult or a couple, my main objective is to stay attentive and empathic to clients' subjective experiences in their key relationships and in their engagement with me during their therapy sessions. I then support and encourage clients to reflect on and gain insight into how these relational dynamics are linked to internal emotional conflicts and struggles, often originating from unresolved family of origin issues. The aim being to assist clients to break entrenched relational patterns that are self limiting and sabotaging, and as such enable them to have recourse to more fulfilling ways of being and relating.