Treatment

Broadly speaking, psychological therapy can be broken up into three categories.

1) Traditional psychoanalytic psychotherapies, such as Freudian, Object Relations, and Self Psychology.
2) Biopsychosocial frameworks, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy & Dialectical Behaviour Therapy.
3) Strengths based approaches, for example Positive Psychology and the Social Models of Disability.

There are of course may other models, theories and treatment frameworks that do not neatly fit into these categories, or are overarching across all human psychology, however for the sake of simplicity, therapy can be thought of as coming primarily from one of these three domains.

As I work with a wide range of individuals, presenting with diverse issues, tailoring individual treatment according to the person’s style, preference, and needs, is most beneficial. Treatment plans can be short or extended in nature, depending on the complexity and duration of the issues to be addressed, as well as the individual’s preference and freedom of choice for length and frequency of engagement.

For many, a structured, skills-based approach, focusing on practical strategies and solutions, primarily drawing on the biopsychosocial frameworks, fits best. For others a highly exploratory style that allows space for understanding and self-reflection through the traditional psychoanalytic approaches is preferred. While the strengths-based models are often helpful throughout, for those experiencing chronic health or adverse circumstances, where a high degree of resilience is required.

In our initial sessions, we’ll work to understand your presenting concerns and get to know your personal history, while establishing some immediate strategies to stabilise the matters which brought you to therapy. From there a collaborative treatment plan and goals will be agreed, based on a shared understanding of the issues to be addressed, and reviewed periodically as treatment progresses.

Appointments are conducted as 50-minute sessions either in-clinic or online through telehealth, with patient’s initially attending on a weekly or fortnightly basis while the active work of treatment is being undertaken, and then reducing to monthly for maintenance, or ceasing and being able to re-engage at a later stage if required.