Treatments

Grief and Loss

To experience bereavement and/or grief and loss can be some of life’s most challenging times. Acknowledging the process is a first step towards understanding how to cope, and how to manage some very uncomfortable symptoms and feelings.

Loss doesn’t need to apply to a person; it can be a relationship, a job, a lifestyle, or health. It depends on the individual, how the process is experienced, and no two people will experience it the same way.

However, with appropriate information and self-care we can make our way through the these knotty and sometimes confusing times, and face life with some new knowledge and in the best of scenarios, with hope and renewed motivation.

Anxiety

The society of today is full of people who experience high levels of anxiety. While anxiety can be a normal response to situations of concern, when anxiety takes control of a person’s life, it can become debilitating. There is a continuum of conditions ranging from anxiety to panic attacks.

The good news is that there are lots of strategies and coping mechanisms that we can learn to take control back.

Depression

As many as one in five people experience some form of depression at some time in their life. Depression robs people of their energy, vitality and motivation as well keeping people feeling down or sad a lot of the time. At it’s worst, it can be life-threatening and there are many types of depression.

Medication can help and therapies that can assist are varied. Brain-Based Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy are two treatments that can be very effective. Thankfully these days, there is a lot fewer stigmas associated with experiencing depression, as so many people know what it feels like, and community awareness is improved. Depression is also often found with anxiety, so both these conditions need to be treated and usually the prognosis is quite good.

Carers and Aged Care

After spending most of her professional career working with family carers, Mary has come to know some amazing stories of resilience, passion and love. Carers are faced with so many challenges and are called on to stretch themselves to limits they would never have imagined. She has an undying regard for the world’s carers.

There are so many concerns they have such as stress, grief, guilt, anxiety, depression, coping with dementia or other conditions, respite, services and their appropriateness, legal issues etc etc. Carers have some very specific needs and often benefit from a variety of services that are funded to support them.

Couple and Family Concerns

A family's patterns of behavior influences the individual and therefore may need to be a part of the treatment plan. In couples and family therapy, the unit of treatment isn't just the person - even if only a single person is interviewed - it is the set of relationships in which the person is imbedded.

Self-esteem

Low self-esteem can negatively affect virtually every part of your life, including your relationships, your job and your health. But you can raise your self-esteem to a healthy level, even if you're an adult who's been harboring a negative self-image since childhood.

Changing the way you think — about yourself and your life — is essential to boosting self-esteem. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques are especially helpful in changing unhealthy thinking and behavior patterns.

Stress Management

The pressure is so intense these days. So many people experience some level of stress. Stress is the body’s response to too much stimulation, such as working too hard, feeling anxious all the time, or just never relaxing.

So many things can cause stress, such as relationship changes and breakdowns, moving house, the death of a loved one, inappropriate diet or drug use and so on.

Becoming self aware, learning to relax and learning self-care are critical factors in managing stress. Your psychologist can assist with all these things and help to map out a plan to suit you.

Anger Management

Anger is often the result of unfulfilled desires and expectations. If we have an unfulfilled expectation of a person we become angry and upset. The mind creates the expectation and imagines the fulfillment of the expectation. However, when the person or event does not match the expectation a pressure develops within, and the mind becomes angry.

When we realise that anger is a by-product of our own way of thinking, then we gain the ability to change the way we think. By taking control of our mind we can also then take control of our life. We can take control of our mind by ordering it to have positive thoughts and reaffirm "there is no benefit in allowing my mind to get angry".

Assertiveness

Not everyone is comfortable being assertive all the time. Nor should we be assertive all the time. But if you find yourself regretting not having stood up for yourself, and if you feel this regret more and more often, then perhaps you could use a little goal-directed assertiveness training.

Motivation and Life Directions

Energy can seem to disappear when motivation becomes low. It is important not to hand over our power to the negative feelings which are also affected by negative associations. Notice how invincible we feel when motivation is high and we then have the energy to reach great achievements. Quite often lack of motivation can create problems in recovery from obsessive compulsions and it becomes extremely hard to stay committed to the program we have chosen. At such times, rather than resort to substance or process abuse to relieve our pain, we can use whatever has worked in the past that results in a healthy outcome.

Life Purpose

If we do not have a meaningful purpose that guides us every day and over the course of our lives, making important decisions, resolving internal and external conflicts, planning for the future, choosing friends and partners, and making sense of suffering become very difficult. Without a chosen, “higher” purpose, life gives us a sort of default purpose: avoid suffering as much as possible. If this is all life means, we are sure to suffer more, not less, because the human mind and spirit need creativity, accomplishment, fulfillment and meaning that the avoidance of suffering alone cannot provide.