Services offered

Therapy

Lifespace Psychology offer individual schema therapy to adults (18+) face to face in Sydney and online. The areas that I work with include:

  • Childhood trauma/ Complex trauma,

  • Depression

  • Anxiety (including generalised, social, health, panic, obsessive compulsive disorder, specific phobias)

  • Alcohol Addiction and Use

  • Anger Management

  • Assertiveness

  • Borderline Personality (BPD)

  • Coping Skills

  • Divorce

  • Domestic Abuse and Violence

  • Emotional Difficulties

  • Grief and Loss

  • Life Transitions

  • PTSD

  • Personal Development and Growth

  • Pregnancy, Prenatal, Postpartum

  • Relationship Issues – partners, family, work, peers, friends

  • Self Esteem

  • Stress and burnout

  • Women's Issues

  • General support and counselling

    I offer supervision to psychologists and
    therapists.

Supervision

I offer supervision to psychologists and
therapists

Approaches

Schema Therapy

Schema therapy is a comprehensive and powerful therapy that can help us break free from recurrent unhelpful patterns of emotions, thoughts, behaviours and relationships. It can enable deep change. Schemas are long standing patterns of response that influence how we see the world, how we feel and how we behave. They are developed during childhood or adolescence and elaborated throughout our lives. In therapy, we focus on the maladaptive schemas (“life traps”) that cause us problems in our lives.

Common examples of how schemas can impact us include: having a negative view of ourselves, difficulties in relationships, problems expressing our feelings and needs, strong attractions to unsuitable partners and unsatisfying careers. Some examples of schema beliefs are: “I’m not good enough” “I am unlovable” “People don’t care about me” “Something bad is going to happen” “People will leave me”. Schema therapy relates our past to our present and helps us evaluate whether there are patterns from our past that we want to change. It uses experiential, cognitive and behavioural strategies to help achieve this. 

Check out my SCHEMA THERAPY page for more detailed information on this approach. 

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

This therapy looks at the way your thoughts, feelings and behaviours interlink and how to break out of negative cycles that we may engage in. It is a short-term therapy that is very practical and has a strong evidence base for many mental health issues. It is particularly useful for anxiety disorders, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol problems.  

My approach

I have an underlying person-centred approach where I value the importance of the relationship in being non-judgemental, genuine and empathic. I am a trauma informed therapist. I will seek to understand you deeply and then tailor the therapy to you as an individual, which may be a schema or cognitive behavioural approach. I also draw on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy strategies (e.g. mindfulness, acceptance, values) and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy approaches (e.g. distress tolerance strategies).

Workplace Facilitation

Why am I passionate about facilitating wellbeing workshops?


After working for 23 years with people with mental health issues and problems I want to prevent these issues happening and promote wellbeing. Most workshop attendees may never enter through a psychologists’ door and I want to give them insight, education and tools so that they may never need to. Workshops help people identify early warning signs and implement wellbeing strategies. Workshops can create a flow-on effect where an individual’s awareness of mental health, positive attitude and healthy change in behaviour influences people around them.

What workshops do I deliver?

Cultivating Resilience
Handling stress
Are you ok? Conversation Skills
Mental Health Awareness
How to Live your Best Life
Developing Emotional intelligence
Increasing Interpersonal Effectiveness
Mindfulness and Golden Moments
How to be a More Confident You
Learn more about Positive Psychology
Applying Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Anxiety and How to Survive It
Beating the Blues
Handling losses
Changing Unhelpful Behaviours
Counselling skills
Schemas and their impact on your life

And many, many more…

Why are mental health and wellbeing workshops important for your workplace?

  • A significant number of your employees right now will have mental health challenges. 1 in 5 adults experience a mental illness in any year. Almost half (45%) Australians will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. (1)

  • Mental health conditions cost Australian employers $11-12 billion annually due to turnover, reduced productivity, absenteeism and compensation claims. (2)

  • Research shows that every $1 invested in workplace wellbeing initiatives can generate $2.30 in benefits to the organisation. (3)

  • Poor mental health affects staff morale and culture, productivity, engagement, loyalty and physical health. All of these impact on work. 

Where does the content come from?

Workshop content comes from science-based research as well as my own practical, clinical experience. Content is informed by Positive Psychology, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Schema Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and Person-Centred Therapy.

Why choose me to deliver your wellbeing workshop?

  • I am naturally very enthusiastic and passionate hence my workshops are very engaging.

  • I am a very experienced clinician in the mental health field so I know what I am talking about. I bring clinical and personal examples to bring life to the materials.

  • I deliver excellent quality, science-based workshops.

  • Workshops can be delivered in one hour so workplaces can easily squeeze it in over lunch.

  • I am a reflective practitioner and the workshops are designed to help people reflect on their lives and wellbeing.

  • I have a lovely Scottish accent so I am pleasant to listen to and interact with. And I smile a lot too 😊

References:

1. Black Dog Institute Facts and Figures about Mental Health: https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/1-facts_figures.pdf

2. and 3. PwC (2014) Creating a mentally healthy workplace. Return on investment analysis p iv. From https://www.pwc.com.au/publications/pdf/beyondblue-workplace-roi-may14.pdf