0439 456 335
Counselling/Psychotherapy with Monique
Monique offers trauma-informed Counselling for children and young people, and Somatic Psychotherapy for women.
As an adopted person; a queer woman; a white skinned, misplaced Aboriginal woman; a sexual abuse survivor; a single mother; and indeed, was even a single teenage mother, Monique has faced the pain and suffering at times of not 'belonging'. It is through a dual journey of adversity and courage that she has gained both personal wisdom and professional knowledge which she brings to her role in supporting others through the times in their lives where they too feel outcast, abandoned or a lack of belonging. Monique carries a deep compassion for those who are suffering and brings a depth of humanity, sensitivity, presence, authenticity and kindness to her counselling, supervising and training roles.
The unfortunate part of being outcast early on in life, is that we tend to do the same kind of self abandonment later in life. We can do this by staying busy, living life on the surface, looking after other's needs and forgetting about our own, addictions, overriding our instincts, ignoring body pain, repressing emotion, etc. Eventually, the flame inside will start to dim and we start to dry out. This is when it's time that we start to find our way back home. Find our way back to ourselves.
Monique is passionate about supporting, understanding and teaching others about the importance of embodiment and the healing of developmental and complex trauma and its impacts on intimate relationships. She has a particular passion for supporting anyone affected by issues of diversity, trauma, belonging or identity including adoption, foster care, stolen generation, childhood abuse, disrupted parenting, intercountry relocation and those who identify as a part of the rainbow community. Monique has a strong belief that safe families belong together.
What is the difference between Counselling and Psychotherapy?
Counselling with adults addresses specific issues or concerns that an individual is currently facing and is often short term in nature where we explore feelings around recent events and how you've tried to manage or cope. Counselling with children and adolescents may be specific in nature, or may use the universal language of play instead. It may be child led and not seem like we are focusing on the issue at all, but in fact, the issue often arises in the themes explored through the play.
Psychotherapy with women is a deeply personal journey. It is generally a longer-term process that focuses on the Self where we explore issues of personal meaning. Psychotherapy works on a deeper level of self-understanding and helps you to better manage core issues that underlie persistent or recurring problems in your life. Instead of just talking about the issues you are faced with, a range of modalities or processes may be used to get to the heart of the matter. There can be considerable cross-over between counselling and psychotherapy.
Monique has founded a healing methodology called Somatic Attachment Focused Expressive Therapies® (SAFE-T) and offers a year-long certified training program to counselling professionals in Northern NSW, Australia. Her Counselling, Supervision and Training services create a ripple effect, influencing love relationships in the Northern Rivers and beyond. Monique has studied intensively and is therefore influenced by the work of Dr Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing), Dr Diane Poole-Heller (founder of Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience), Bert Hellinger (founder of Family Constellations), Dora Kalff (founder of Sandplay Therapy), Dr Mark Pearson & Dr Helen Wilson (founders of Expressive Therapies), Dr Susan Johnson (Founder of Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples) and Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper & Bert Powell (Founders of Circle of Security).
As an adopted person; a queer woman; a white skinned, misplaced Aboriginal woman; a sexual abuse survivor; a single mother; and indeed, was even a single teenage mother, Monique has faced the pain and suffering at times of not 'belonging'. It is through a dual journey of adversity and courage that she has gained both personal wisdom and professional knowledge which she brings to her role in supporting others through the times in their lives where they too feel outcast, abandoned or a lack of belonging. Monique carries a deep compassion for those who are suffering and brings a depth of humanity, sensitivity, presence, authenticity and kindness to her counselling, supervising and training roles.
The unfortunate part of being outcast early on in life, is that we tend to do the same kind of self abandonment later in life. We can do this by staying busy, living life on the surface, looking after other's needs and forgetting about our own, addictions, overriding our instincts, ignoring body pain, repressing emotion, etc. Eventually, the flame inside will start to dim and we start to dry out. This is when it's time that we start to find our way back home. Find our way back to ourselves.
Monique is passionate about supporting, understanding and teaching others about the importance of embodiment and the healing of developmental and complex trauma and its impacts on intimate relationships. She has a particular passion for supporting anyone affected by issues of diversity, trauma, belonging or identity including adoption, foster care, stolen generation, childhood abuse, disrupted parenting, intercountry relocation and those who identify as a part of the rainbow community. Monique has a strong belief that safe families belong together.
What is the difference between Counselling and Psychotherapy?
Counselling with adults addresses specific issues or concerns that an individual is currently facing and is often short term in nature where we explore feelings around recent events and how you've tried to manage or cope. Counselling with children and adolescents may be specific in nature, or may use the universal language of play instead. It may be child led and not seem like we are focusing on the issue at all, but in fact, the issue often arises in the themes explored through the play.
Psychotherapy with women is a deeply personal journey. It is generally a longer-term process that focuses on the Self where we explore issues of personal meaning. Psychotherapy works on a deeper level of self-understanding and helps you to better manage core issues that underlie persistent or recurring problems in your life. Instead of just talking about the issues you are faced with, a range of modalities or processes may be used to get to the heart of the matter. There can be considerable cross-over between counselling and psychotherapy.
Monique has founded a healing methodology called Somatic Attachment Focused Expressive Therapies® (SAFE-T) and offers a year-long certified training program to counselling professionals in Northern NSW, Australia. Her Counselling, Supervision and Training services create a ripple effect, influencing love relationships in the Northern Rivers and beyond. Monique has studied intensively and is therefore influenced by the work of Dr Peter Levine (founder of Somatic Experiencing), Dr Diane Poole-Heller (founder of Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience), Bert Hellinger (founder of Family Constellations), Dora Kalff (founder of Sandplay Therapy), Dr Mark Pearson & Dr Helen Wilson (founders of Expressive Therapies), Dr Susan Johnson (Founder of Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples) and Kent Hoffman, Glen Cooper & Bert Powell (Founders of Circle of Security).
Somatic Attachment Focused Expressive Therapies®
SAFE-T® is a multi-modal approach to healing trauma and to enhancing profound Attachment system repair. It is based on the principle that attachment security or insecurity has physiological, as well as psychological, symptoms. As these symptoms are mostly unconscious, using words or insight does not give us adequate access. We need to work at a level below language, essentially with a different part of the brain.
That part is the right brain where the limbic system holds visceral, emotional and implicit memory. It is there that our earliest sense of ourself, and ourself in relation to others, is formed. Without accessing this, we are working with only a linguistic representation, frequently distorted, of those formative experiences that provide our relationship blueprint and unconsciously guide us through our relationship to ourself and others.
SAFE-T® uses a combination of the felt sense, interoception, Sandplay Therapy and a range of other expressive modalities to access this vital part of the brain and bridge new neural pathways to an explicit expression of Self and often a new narrative to live by.
Attachment work is the key to SAFE-T®. I use somatic skills, creative modalities and important principles to support your growing sense of safety, trust, self-knowledge; ability to take risks, manage disappointments and rejections; and development of a deeply-held internal sense that a protecting, wise, and attuned someone lives both inside and outside of you, guiding you and keeping you safe while enhancing your capacity for joy.
Throughout SAFE-T® is a constant theme of compassion and kindness and, within that, love. It is our capacity to love from our own accessed secure attachment that creates the fertile soil for transformation.
Note: SAFE-T® is a synthesis of my trainings, study and experiences. Key influences are Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience; Circle of Security; Somatic Experiencing; Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples; Expressive Therapies and Sandplay Therapy.
That part is the right brain where the limbic system holds visceral, emotional and implicit memory. It is there that our earliest sense of ourself, and ourself in relation to others, is formed. Without accessing this, we are working with only a linguistic representation, frequently distorted, of those formative experiences that provide our relationship blueprint and unconsciously guide us through our relationship to ourself and others.
SAFE-T® uses a combination of the felt sense, interoception, Sandplay Therapy and a range of other expressive modalities to access this vital part of the brain and bridge new neural pathways to an explicit expression of Self and often a new narrative to live by.
Attachment work is the key to SAFE-T®. I use somatic skills, creative modalities and important principles to support your growing sense of safety, trust, self-knowledge; ability to take risks, manage disappointments and rejections; and development of a deeply-held internal sense that a protecting, wise, and attuned someone lives both inside and outside of you, guiding you and keeping you safe while enhancing your capacity for joy.
Throughout SAFE-T® is a constant theme of compassion and kindness and, within that, love. It is our capacity to love from our own accessed secure attachment that creates the fertile soil for transformation.
Note: SAFE-T® is a synthesis of my trainings, study and experiences. Key influences are Dynamic Attachment Repatterning Experience; Circle of Security; Somatic Experiencing; Emotion Focused Therapy for Couples; Expressive Therapies and Sandplay Therapy.
Expressive Therapies
Expressive Therapies (ET) is a blend of experiential personal growth (developmental) and counselling (therapeutic) methods, developed in Australia by Dr. Mark Pearson and Dr. Helen Wilson, and others, since 1987, which support the emotional healing of adults, adolescents and children. These approaches cooperate with the natural movement within the psyche towards wholeness – the process Jung called ‘individuation’.
Expressive Therapies can help people of all ages recover from experiences of disrupted or insecure attachment. ET methods utilize art materials, such as paints, drawing, clay, collage and even digital media, along with music, drama, movement and writing. Modalities can be grouped into four major categories: Movement, Sound, Storytelling and Silence.
Movement involves dancing, yoga, sensory integration, energy arts, cultural practices, labyrinth, play.
Sound involves singing, drumming, playing instruments, humming, chanting/prayer, vibration, listening.
Storytelling involves enactment, drama, role playing, improvisation, visual art, creative writing, lyrics, journalling, embodied narratives, ceremony/ritual.
Silence involves mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, art making, yoga, labyrinth walking, felt sense, interoception, witnessing art.
ET is an invitational, self-discovery approach, encouraging insights and change from within the client. The methods and attitudes are client-centred; recognition and value is given to the significance of the client’s personal interpretations and meanings. The processes have been developed from an expanded understanding of the psyche, with an evolving research base, founded on the tradition of creative arts therapies and particularly Jungian, Gestalt, Transpersonal, Emotion Focussed and Constructivist Psychology.
Expressive Therapies can help people of all ages recover from experiences of disrupted or insecure attachment. ET methods utilize art materials, such as paints, drawing, clay, collage and even digital media, along with music, drama, movement and writing. Modalities can be grouped into four major categories: Movement, Sound, Storytelling and Silence.
Movement involves dancing, yoga, sensory integration, energy arts, cultural practices, labyrinth, play.
Sound involves singing, drumming, playing instruments, humming, chanting/prayer, vibration, listening.
Storytelling involves enactment, drama, role playing, improvisation, visual art, creative writing, lyrics, journalling, embodied narratives, ceremony/ritual.
Silence involves mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, art making, yoga, labyrinth walking, felt sense, interoception, witnessing art.
ET is an invitational, self-discovery approach, encouraging insights and change from within the client. The methods and attitudes are client-centred; recognition and value is given to the significance of the client’s personal interpretations and meanings. The processes have been developed from an expanded understanding of the psyche, with an evolving research base, founded on the tradition of creative arts therapies and particularly Jungian, Gestalt, Transpersonal, Emotion Focussed and Constructivist Psychology.
Expressive Therapy Modalities
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As ET is process oriented, body oriented and multi-modal, a range of modalities will be used in sessions with women and young people. These include:
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Somatic Methods
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Body Focus is a method of interoception that supports the exploration of psychosomatic signals from the body, indicating unconscious feelings carried in implicit memory, which bring attention.
Through inner focus and guiding questions clients can connect with areas of the body that seem to hold feelings or sensations that are ready for expression. Metaphor and imagery are invited as ways of accessing implicit memory and allowing the unconscious to communicate and resolve issues. Bioenergetics are specific exercises that awaken the flow of emotions and energy within the body. Held-in emotional pain is often felt as physical pain or tension. Unexpressed love and generous impulses that have not flowed out can harden and begin to feel like their negative opposites. The body has many habits of physical holding and muscular contraction. Under this is a healthy energy core. Freeing the body is a vital aspect of helping clients connect with the positive, creative self. |
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Sandplay Therapy
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Sandplay Therapy is a hands-on, expressive counselling and psychotherapy modality that has been in use for over 80 years.
Sandplay forms a bridge between verbal therapy and the expressive therapies, combining elements of each. Sandplay allows the deeper aspects of the psyche to be worked with naturally and in safety, and is highly effective in reducing the emotional causes behind difficult behaviours and moving clients toward greater internal security. With an extensive research and literature base, Sandplay is a powerful therapeutic method for use by established professionals. It has been used with children, adolescents and adults, in schools, hospitals, welfare agencies and private therapy practices. |
Symbol Work
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Symbol Work combines activities with Gestalt theory and applies this to working with small symbolic objects. The play aspect of this approach makes it inviting and non-threatening.
Symbol Work is used with children, adolescents and adults and can help resolve personal problems, reclaim forgotten qualities and provide a framework for the individual to reconnect with positivity and direction within themselves. |
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Emotion Regulation Processes
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Emotion Regulation Processes can help deal with the underlying feelings that may be driving an individual's behaviour and support a sense of balance and integration. Through process work we can express current feelings as well as work back through old feelings and behaviour patterns that add fuel to acting-out and withdrawal. These implicit memories, or imprints from the past, can contribute to sabotage in daily life. Emotion focussing methods can be used to regulate both conscious and unconscious emotions and integrate in explicit memory, creating a more current narrative. Process work provides a safe, structured way of encountering troublesome issues and supports the deep healing of anger, grief, loss, rage and resentment.
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How to Make an Appointment...
I am available for sessions on Mondays and Fridays during business hours and Saturday afternoons by request.
My clinic is located at 'THRIVE Clinic: Relationship Specialists', 138 Dalley Street, Mullumbimby, Northern NSW, Australia.
To make an appointment with me, please get in touch by phone or email.
My clinic is located at 'THRIVE Clinic: Relationship Specialists', 138 Dalley Street, Mullumbimby, Northern NSW, Australia.
To make an appointment with me, please get in touch by phone or email.
