Professional Mental Health Support
Evidence-Based Counselling for Anxiety, Depression & Wellbeing
Good mental health (a sense of well-being, confidence and self-esteem) is shaped by life experiences and how you respond to them. Seeking professional counselling services at times of extreme stress will help you develop your abilities to deal with life's challenges.
Remember one in five Australians experiences mental health concerns at some time in their lives. Catherine offers compassionate, evidence-based support to help you develop resilience and coping strategies.
Catherine has been helping clients manage anxiety for over 20 years. Initially, she worked with anxiety and stress associated with infertility, treatment cycles and specific needle and blood injury phobia while she worked at a private fertility clinic. This then extended to working with panic disorder, agoraphobia, social phobia, generalised anxiety disorders and obsessive compulsive disorders as a Mental Health Clinician with the Southern Medicare Local. According to Beyondblue, one in four people will develop an anxiety disorder at some time in their lives. An anxiety disorder may begin due to high levels of stress, learned behaviour, the effects of personality or health concerns. When it begins to interfere with your ability to function, it is important to seek counselling support and medical assistance. See also stress reduction and the 'fight and flight' response.
Useful Websites:
As a previous Medicare Local Mental Health Clinician and as a registered provider of Medicare services for over 20 years, Catherine has worked with all types of depression including post-natal depression and bi-polar disorder. Catherine is very understanding of the severity and the difficulties depression presents for clients and their families. At Medicare Local, Catherine worked for years in the Suicide Prevention Program and in the Perinatal Depression Initiative Program. At Repromed Fertility Clinic she worked with clients with ante-natal and post-natal depression. There are many contributing factors to depression and Catherine will assess your particular life circumstances (past and present life stresses, transitions, traumas, work, family, losses, health and relationships), provide emotional support and work with you to improve your mood and identify ways to manage and stay well.
Useful websites:
Useful contacts:
Since 1985, Catherine has provided grief counselling and has received professional training on grief, loss and trauma. Catherine has worked with terminally ill patients and their families, ran support groups for cancer patients, counselled families bereaved by suicide; individuals and couples struggling with infertility loss, loss of health, employment or separating couples etc. Where needed, Catherine can support people to safely explore their feelings of grief and connect with painful feelings and memories to pave the way for some healing. Although early help is recommended, sometimes people work through complicated grief and trauma, even years after the event.
Grief is often part of trauma. Catherine has had experience and training in trauma when she provided counselling services to Respond SA, a service for adult survivors of child sexual abuse; while she worked as a Crisis Response Worker at Yarrow Place, a service for survivors of adult sexual abuse; and as a Mental Health Clinician working with complex trauma.
After trauma, the nervous system remains prepared for danger and can be triggered by current reminders of the past trauma. Catherine will respect your need for safety and work with you to develop your resources and strengths.
Catherine is experienced in EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) an evidence-based approach to processing trauma. She is also trained in E.F.T (Energy Freedom Technique). Both of these techniques work with the mind and the body to integrate memories and feelings. Mindfulness skills, hypnotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy also help process trauma.
While stress can be a motivating force, if it is frequent, prolonged or severe it can outdo one's normal capacity to cope causing health, social, occupational and relationship difficulties. Stress switches on the body's survival mechanism, the fight and flight response, making it ready for action. Adrenalin is automatically released in the body causing a number of physical and mental changes. If prolonged, this fight and flight response burdens the body and leads to:
Managing stress is therefore very important and Catherine can help you identify your stressors, learn relaxation skills, improve self-care and solve problems more effectively.
