At Henshaw Consulting, we offer a Psychology Service that aims to transform your depression and anxiety into a sense of relief, understanding of yourself and lightness of being. You may contact us at any time to get more information if, after reading this, you still have some questions.
Our Psychology Service offers you Psychotherapy, which is an umbrella term encompassing a myriad of methods, strategies and techniques to bring about personal change. For example, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Emotional Freedom Techniques and Hakomi Body-Centred Psychotherapy are a few such methods. Psychotherapeutic models literally number in their thousands and although research shows that all are equally effective, a few stand out as most popular. However, what accounts for the greatest change is the healing power of the relationship you have with your therapist. Together you explore the extent to which you can tap into and enhance your own natural resources to improve your life.
As such, our focus first and foremost is on you, the client. We are interested in who you are, your strengths, your humanity and your woundedness. We are interested in your life experience, how your background helped shape the person you are and how you perceive and create your reality.
We are especially interested in what brought you to therapy because we recognise this as a crucial and courageous step on the path to personal transformation. Many people choose to live on the surface of life without pausing to wonder too much how they came to be at the mercy of their circumstances. By engaging in the process of therapy you have chosen a different path, one of creating a better life for yourself, one that you truly love.
We believe that the work of transformation is the most important work you can do in your lifetime, yet it is not for the faint hearted. At times therapy is challenging, confronting and painful as you acknowledge the emotional pain you have held onto for many years. It is also a long term, expensive endeavour with serendipitous outcomes that needs to be planned for and incorporated into your life. Once embarked upon, it is a richly rewarding, truly magnificent gift that you give to yourself. The benefits of therapy are that you release old patterns of thinking, feeling and behaviour that have you trapped in cycles of suffering that can literally last for years. These cycles often manifest themselves in a variety of ways including conflicted relationships, work you don't enjoy, physical illness and symptoms, financial problems and mental health difficulties such as depression and anxiety.
The aim of therapy is to manifest the life you love and reduce your suffering. In therapy you learn about how much of your life is driven by avoiding pain and how in so doing, you are actually unconsciously recreating painful experiences. By increasing your awareness you are then able to make choices that improve the quality of your life. You learn about how you have shaped your identity and how to create a better structure for your life. Psychotherapy is highly effective which is why it is one of the most powerful tools of personal growth at your disposal.
Choosing a Therapist that's a Good Match
It is important that you choose your therapist wisely. We recommend that you go by gut feeling and ask yourself some basic questions like: "How good is the rapport that I feel with this therapist?" "Do I feel cared about, understood and respected?" "Does this person have the wisdom and compassion to take me where I want to go?" "Is this person qualified, skilled and intelligent enough to be trustworthy?" Finally but perhaps most importantly, "Does this person engage in personal and professional development so as to increase his or her emotional capacity and skills?" This last is the most important question because unless therapists tackle their issues they have a limited capacity to be fully present to your own pain. There's nothing more disappointing than feeling abandoned to deal with your depths of despair because your therapist has shut down and can't cope. This issue is especially pertinent for survivors of trauma.
The Process of Therapy
Your first session is an assessment session. It involves taking down the details of your presenting problem, relevant information about your personal history and what you hope to achieve in therapy. You will also be given a questionnaire to provide an additional source of information. Once this information has been collected, therapy sessions are usually conducted on a weekly basis and you should start feeling some relief from your distress fairly quickly. Usually up to 10 sessions will provide good symptom relief though ongoing therapy is invaluable for shifting core issues and achieving long lasting personal growth.
Henshaw Consulting Therapeutic Orientation
We favour an approach to therapy that is gentle and intuitive. We consider therapy to be sacred, spiritual work and we approach it with reverence and respect. Most therapeutic approaches we use are body and emotion-centred although we do not adhere to the dogma of any particular model. We believe that every individual is unique and therefore defies fitting into any one particular method. Different modalities offer useful tools to provide assistance when required. The training of Henshaw Consulting therapists incorporates a rigorous and intellectual approach but leads with the therapist's own innate intuition, wisdom and unique style.
Therapeutic Approaches Used at Henshaw Consulting Are:
Interpersonal Process Therapy (IPT)
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR),
Client-Centred Therapy
Schema Focussed Therapy
Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP)
Emotion Focused Therapy
Psychoanalytic / Humanistic / Existentialist Theory and Therapy
Most importantly the team at Henshaw Consulting continuously updates their professional skills and engages in their own therapeutic process, which benefits and facilitates clients' learning.
What is a Clinical Psychologist?
A clinical psychologist is an expert in the field of understanding human behaviour and in particular, mental health. Clinical psychologists help people change their problematic thinking and behaviour around issues such as relationships, work, major life changes, self esteem and performance. They also help people recover from various mental disorders such depression and anxiety. They typically offer strategies to make positive changes in peoples' lives. Unlike psychiatrists who predominantly favour biological explanations for mental disorders, clinical psychologists are not medically trained, nor can they prescribe medications
Since 2000 the minimum training requirement currently required by the Psychologists Board of WA (which registers all psychologists in WA) is 6 years' training at an accredited university (a 4 year undergraduate degree as well as a 2 year masters' degree). A specialist title is awarded after 2 years of supervised practice - representing a total of at least 8 years training. Previous to 2000, psychologists were able to register with the board if they had a 4 year undergraduate degree and 2 years' additional supervised practice.