Hello. My name is Sonia. I am a clinical psychologist in private practice; and I am also the coordinator of the Perth Complex Trauma Mental Health Professionals Network, and chairperson for Complex Trauma WA. I am passionate about doing whatever is within my power to protect children; and to help make sure that people who got hurt by the very people who should have protected them, get the kind of help they need when they ask for it.
I understand how hard it is to actually go to a therapist, so I thought I’d say a little bit about what you could expect at my practice if we were to work together. I also anticipate that you may need a few sessions before you can really get a feel for whether I might be the right kind of therapist for you or not, and that is perfectly fine with me.
I run a fairly standard clinical psychology practice, but most of my clients are adult survivors of complex trauma and I do what I can to adapt for what they need in order to best make use of psychotherapy. At our first meeting, I will listen closely to whatever you feel ready to tell me about, and I will probably ask a few questions about your family, and what it was like when you were at school, and what you found useful or not if you had sought help before. This helps us to determine where you’re at at the start of therapy, and how to prioritise what we focus on first. During the course of treatment, I will help you to make sense of what happened to you; teach you how your brain works and how it has done remarkable things to protect you; and introduce you to practical strategies to help you cope better with everyday life. Sometimes, during consultations, that means that people may walk around or lean against the consulting room door while we talk. Sometimes they play with kinetic sand or other sensory items (such as squishy stress balls, or an ice pack), or use of a weighted blanket, or just hold onto the massive Therapy Elephant until their nervous systems return to a manageable Window of Tolerance. Much of the work we do, will directly or indirectly target your attachment trauma too, to help improve your sense of your-Self and your capacity to recognise, tolerate, and manage your feelings in ways that better serve you. This can be helpful to re-establish your trust in yourself and in other people; and the way you manage your relationships in ways that serve you rather than undermine your needs. Whether in between, if you’re up for it, or only when you feel better equipped to do so, we process traumatic experiences in ways that are best indicated for your needs.
I love my work, and I feel privileged to work with the people I do. I have the utmost respect for the tremendous courage, tenacity, and resourcefulness of every survivor of childhood complex trauma, irrespective of what you’ve had to do to survive. You can trust that I do what I need to do to look after myself too, so that you don’t have to, and so that I can be a reliable resource for you on your healing journey.
["Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)","Attachment-based Therapy","Body-oriented psychotherapy","Trauma-based narrative therapy","Skills training in Affective and Interpersonal Regulation","Psychodynamic psychotherapy","Humanistic psychotherapy","Other"]
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