Services

Assessment

Whilst many clients are understandably eager to proceed with treatment, Angela believes a clear assessment is vital to providing effective, tailored intervention that will support long-term change. Assessment entails understanding a client’s current situation, the factors that have led to this and that are maintaining it, as well as those issues that might be getting in the way of change. This process often helps clients to understand themselves better, and can be a therapeutic experience in and of itself. Psychiatric diagnosis/es are also made if applicable and clients are supported to understand these.

Through many years of experience working with children and adolescents, Angela has found it is important to take a systemic approach (i.e. involving primary care givers and/or families) when working with children and adolescents in order to achieve genuine change. Parents/caregivers are typically the most important people in a young person’s life and tend to have the greatest scope to influence them. The importance of parental participation has been recognised in changes to Medicare funding for children with a Mental Health Care Plan and there is now scope for 2 out of the 10 sessions to be utilised by parents. Angela negotiates parental/family involvement with each individual family and it can take many forms, ranging from the input primarily being in the assessment phase to dedicated child-focussed parent-therapy sessions, dyadic work with the young person and parent, or family therapy.

Treatment

Angela will negotiate a treatment plan with each client individually and clients do not need to “choose” a therapy in advance. Angela is able to work flexibly from a variety of approaches.

Angela is trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). She takes a psychodynamically-informed approach in her work.

CBT has the strongest evidence base of all psychological therapies. It is a short-term structured therapy, which gives clients the tools to identify and challenge unhelpful thinking patterns and behaviours, as well as work on maladaptive core beliefs, which may be driving some of these thoughts and behaviours.

CAT is a structured therapy that focuses on unhelpful or problematic ways of relating to yourself and others. It is collaborative and highlights the importance of early experiences in shaping our relational patterns and inner “voice”. It involves developing a shared understanding of the circumstances which may have led to a problem the client wishes to address and mapping out the unhelpful patterns (procedures) that are occurring with a view to finding a different way of responding. Clients receive a written letter reformulating their story in relation to the target problem, which is often experienced as powerful and validating. A standard CAT is 16 sessions, ideally weekly or fortnightly; however, there is scope to negotiate a shorter (no less than 10 sessions) or longer therapy (generally no more than 24 sessions).

Supervision

Angela is a Psychology Board of Australia approved clinical supervisor and has supervised a number of psychologists completing their registrar program as well as other experienced clinical psychologists. If you would like more information about her supervision style and rates, please contact her through the Contact page or on 0493 882 230.