Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):

Yes, we do provide rebates through the Better Access to Mental Health Initiative. If you’ve had a conversation with your GP about accessing support through this program and have a Mental Health Treatment Plan in place, you’re eligible for a Medicare rebate for your counselling sessions.

Definition by emdr.com:

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a psychotherapy that enables people to heal from the symptoms and emotional distress that are the result of disturbing life experiences. Repeated studies show that by using EMDR therapy people can experience the benefits of psychotherapy that once took years to make a difference. It is widely assumed that severe emotional pain requires a long time to heal. EMDR therapy shows that the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain’s information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can cause intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. Using the detailed protocols and procedures learned in EMDR therapy training sessions, clinicians help clients activate their natural healing processes.

More than 30 positive controlled outcome studies have been done on EMDR therapy. Some of the studies show that 84%-90% of single-trauma victims no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder after only three 90-minute sessions. Another study, funded by the HMO Kaiser Permanente, found that 100% of the single-trauma victims and 77% of multiple trauma victims no longer were diagnosed with PTSD after only six 50-minute sessions. In another study, 77% of combat veterans were free of PTSD in 12 sessions. There has been so much research on EMDR therapy that it is now recognized as an effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences by organizations such as the American Psychiatric Association, the World Health Organization and the Department of Defense. Given the worldwide recognition as an effective treatment of trauma, you can easily see how EMDR therapy would be effective in treating the “everyday” memories that are the reason people have low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, and all the myriad problems that bring them in for therapy. Over 100,000 clinicians throughout the world use the therapy. Millions of people have been treated successfully over the past 25 years.

EMDR therapy is an eight-phase treatment. Eye movements (or other bilateral stimulation) are used during one part of the session. After the clinician has determined which memory to target first, he asks the client to hold different aspects of that event or thought in mind and to use his eyes to track the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth across the client’s field of vision. As this happens, for reasons believed by a Harvard researcher to be connected with the biological mechanisms involved in Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, internal associations arise and the clients begin to process the memory and disturbing feelings. In successful EMDR therapy, the meaning of painful events is transformed on an emotional level. For instance, a rape victim shifts from feeling horror and self-disgust to holding the firm belief that, “I survived it and I am strong.” Unlike talk therapy, the insights clients gain in EMDR therapy result not so much from clinician interpretation, but from the client’s own accelerated intellectual and emotional processes. The net effect is that clients conclude EMDR therapy feeling empowered by the very experiences that once debased them. Their wounds have not just closed, they have transformed. As a natural outcome of the EMDR therapeutic process, the clients’ thoughts, feelings and behavior are all robust indicators of emotional health and resolution—all without speaking in detail or doing homework used in other therapies.

Here is a link to a YouTube video describing EMDR and how it works in detail

For those of you who may like to read reviews when looking for a therapist and have concerns when there are none, it may be interesting for you to know why you may not see them, and why we do not use them. As well, with the seeming importance of reviews in business these days, we thought this would be a helpful thing to know.

Most therapists are members of professional bodies such as ACA (Australian Counselling Association), AASW (Australian Association of Social Workers) or APS (Australian Psychological Society). Professional bodies act to ensure members are appropriately trained, maintain regular and audited ongoing professional training (to keep their title) and adhere to set ethical guidelines or Code of Ethics.

A client needs to know the therapist they are entrusting with their story is beyond reproach. A person entering into therapy needs to know that confidentiality is respected and that they are protected from any form of exploitation. Breaches of ethical practice are taken very seriously and clients are encouraged to make complaints to the professional body to which the therapist belongs if they have any concerns.

The ones listed above have a comprehensive website (as do others such as PACFA and OTBA) and a section where Complaints can be lodged.

Here are three statements from three professional bodies in relation to testimonials and reviews:

Counselors who use testimonials do not solicit them from current clients nor former clients nor any other persons who may be vulnerable to undue influence (ACA Code of Ethics, 2014, C.3.b).

Psychologists do not solicit testimonials from current therapy clients/patients or other persons who because of their particular circumstances are vulnerable to undue influence (Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, 2010, 5.05).

Social workers should not engage in solicitation of testimonial endorsements (including solicitation of consent to use a client’s prior statement as a testimonial endorsement) from current clients or from other people who, because of their particular circumstances, are vulnerable to undue influence (NASW Code of Ethics, 2017, 4.07.b).