Hello, here is some information about me that you might find useful.
I’ve been a clinical psychologist / therapist for over thirty years, although during that time I’ve had breaks too. I’m Irish, I did my psychology training in England, and I’ve lived in Australia for 30 years.
I think therapy can work in a number of ways.
- Sometimes it’s about trying to make a decision in a situation where you feel stuck and can’t make up your mind.
- Sometimes it’s about the pain of depression or anxiety, or a relationship that’s not working.
- Sometimes it’s about having a place where you can say things that you can’t say to anyone else.
- Sometimes it’s about coping with something you can’t control.
- It’s always about change of some kind.
How I work depends on what the client wants to achieve. I can use a cognitive approach, looking at how unhelpful thoughts can lead to unhelpful behaviour. I can also take an interpersonal approach, where we use the interactions between the therapist and the client to spot self-defeating ways of being. Mostly, I take what’s called a Narrative perspective, focussing on the narrative or story that we each have about ourselves. Sometimes that story helps, sometimes it gets in the way. You might like to look up these approaches on the net.
If you have a referral from your GP, and the GP makes out a Mental Health Care Plan, you can claim a rebate for each session (to a maximum of 10 sessions per calendar year) from Medicare.
If you have a Pension card, a Health Care card, or a DVA Gold card, your sessions can be bulk-billed and there will be no gap to pay.
If not, the charge per session is $180 with a Medicare rebate to you of $141.85 - a gap fee of $38.15.
From time to time, I run groups. As with individual sessions, there is a Medicare rebate for up to ten of these per calendar year. This is in addition to any individual sessions you may have. The cost per group is $50 with a Medicare rebate of $36 - a gap fee of $14.
Thank you for taking the time to read this – I hope it was helpful.