After finishing a psycho-analytic based Social Work course at the University of Adelaide I specialised as a psychotherapist using the Person Centered approach pioneered by Carl Rogers..
By the time I had finished the course's field placements in probation, parole, veterans, family, children and disability I had settled on this as the most efficient and effective way to work
It was not intrusive and minimised the risks of making things worse or burning out. The therapy pages on the side menu outline discuss how and why.
My first paid work was in The Service to Youth Council in Adelaide which was set up to provide outreach to street gangs and counselling along strictly Person Centered lines.
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Extensive experience in a range of different settings.
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in private practice in Adelaide, Australia as a psychotherapist since 2003
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couples, families and groups, particularly short-term at times of crisis and with complex problems..
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psychiatric social worker in community and emergency response, acute wards, and a therapeutic community.
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children and young people - street work, foster care, adoptions, and early childhood services
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corrections
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medical
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aged care
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disability
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alcohol and other drug counselling
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vocational counselling
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advocacy for individuals and disadvantaged groups.
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education – primary, secondary and tertiary education, student-centered education and home education and supervising staff, volunteers and social work students in a variety of workplaces.
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consultation and supervision
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Community Development facilitating setting up community-based services including child care, schooling, food and housing cooperatives and legal services.
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extensive experience of organisational structures, processes, aims, policy, procedures, formal and informal complaint procedures and dispute resolution in community organisations.
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environment and human rights campaigns.
influences
As I write it is fashionable to dismiss psychoanalytic theory and practice. Usually without trying it.
I worked in Psychoanalytic settings for a few years drawing on observations, introspection and healing experiences of supervisors, co-workers and writers in this vast and diverse tradition. My approach seemed to fit in or at least it was tolerated.
I learnt how to listen, understand what I am hearing and began to understand who was listening.
Also the discipline of watching children grow and play. And the world of fantasy. And the exploration of sex, eating and elimination as foundations of behaviour. And how thoughts and feelings manifest themselves in the body and illness.
Freud added to the insights of centuries of European philosophers into the nature of mind and society and developed them into ways of healing. As a natural historian his detailed observations and insights were ground-breaking .
I more or less ignored the later theories of Freud and Jung including their theories of personality as I found them unhelpful and too ambiguous to test.
I am indebted to colleagues early on who encouraged me to question theories and practices, and test the effectiveness of what I was doing. This saved wandering down many of the dead ends that mainstream practice offered at the time.
I have benefited from the support and ideas of countless therapists from different schools of thought, face to face and through their writings. I have searched for those who know, function well and get results. Not necessarily the famous or officially approved, in fact I learned to approach those sources with more caution. I have been interested in what actually works rather than what is plausible, acceptable or profitable.
I retain the Social Worker's bias of viewing people and problems in the context of family and community.