History

I am a Somatic Psychotherapist in Melbourne, Australia. I have been in Private Practice since 1986 and specialised in this field of psychotherapy through a three year initial training from 1984 to '87. I had trained as a Social Worker in the late 1970's at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. I am a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and also of the Australian Association of Somatic Psychotherapists (AASP at www.somaticpsych.org.au.) which is a constituent and founding member of The Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA ). I am listed on the PACFA Register of individual practitioners. To find out more about PACFA click here on pacfa.org.au

I see clients at my home office in Kew, Melbourne. In recent years I have completed a Masters of Psychoanalytic Studies at Monash University's Department of Psychological Medicine. I am a mother and grandmother and that life experience is invaluable to my work as a psychotherapist.

My Professional History

My earliest job was as a primary school teacher in Victoria, Australia and I went back to this in the 1970's before deciding that I wanted to be able to help children and their families in a different way. I embarked on a 4 year Degree in Social Work at Monash University, Melbourne. As well as the straight social work subjects in the final 2 years, I studied politics, sociology, Russian literature in translation and psychology. I most enjoyed the Russian literature, political philosophy and a politics course titled The Morality of Power.

For ten years I then worked in three social work jobs. The first was in a marriage and family counselling agency in Sandringham, Melbourne called Southern Family Life. There I learned that what I enjoyed most about social work was working in the one to one relationship with clients. However, I soon found that I did not always know enough to help in the ways that seemed necessary and it took some time to find what I needed to do in that regard.

My second social work job first took me into another realm when I was employed by Wesley Central Mission and became the first social worker to be employed in a 'world first' centre specifically devoted to the care of people with Huntington's Disease. I learned to work with very traumatised families who lived with a terrible chronic hereditary illness and I learned to work with anger and grief. I stayed for 4 years before moving to The Royal Womens' Hospital where I worked with all the families who had a baby in intensive care in the Neo-Natal Unit. In those years there was at least one baby death each week in the unit so again, grief and loss was a big component of the work. For more information regarding Social Work, you can check out the web-site of the AASW on www.aasw.asn.au.

While working at the Arthur Preston Centre for Huntington's Disease, I found a three year experiential training in what was then called Biodynamic Therapy. It was a body oriented, Neo-Reichian therapy. I began the course in 1984. At the time it was a private course run by Jeff Barlow who had trained in Biodynamic Psychology at the Gerda Boyesen Institute in London. My trainers included Robyn Speyer who also trained at and taught the Bio-dynamic massage at the Gerda Boyesen Institute. We were also taught by Ken Speyer, David Boadella and Julie Henderson. We learned ways of being with clients, forms of therapeutic massage and the Bio-energetic techniques of Alexander Lowen.

The training course required an involvement in your own psychotherapeutic process. That initial 9 year long term commitment to my own psychotherapeutic process has been crucial to my growth as a psychotherapist. I set up in private practice in mid -1996 while still working at the Royal Women's Hospital with the families of the premature newborns.

It was also the people involved in these trainings who formed the Australian Association of Somatic Psychotherapists (To find out more about the AASP, click here for their website: somaticpsych.org.au)

Following the initial three years, as well as being in regular supervision with a psychoanalytic psychotherapist I participated in an additional 10 small group weekends over three years with Carolyn Musgrave, who helped us to integrate the somatic work within a psychodynamic framework. This introduction to object relations and psychoanalytic thinking brought a whole new dimension to my work with clients and new ways of thinking about active body work and touch in the psychotherapeutic relationship. In the 1990's I also participated for 5 years in a twice weekly psychoanalytic group with a senior psychoanalyst.

From 1996 to 1998 I undertook a 3 year Masters of Psychoanalytic Studies degree by course work and minor thesis in the Department of Psychological Medicine at Monash University. I wanted to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and understanding of psychoanalysis and I wanted to undertake an infant observation which was part of the course. The co-ordinator of this course was Associate Professor Dr. Michal Lapinski and the teachers were all members of the Melbourne Institute of Psychoanalysis. Very early in the course I decided that I would use the thesis as a way of thinking more about the place of touch in psychotherapy.

I maintain a strong commitment to my own on-going learning through professional development activities and regular weekly supervision with senior experienced psychoanalytic psychotherapists. I also offer supervision to less experienced Somatic Psychotherapists or other counsellors and psychotherapists who want to explore issues of physical touch in the work that they do.

Future Directions

As a result of my experience and the writing of my thesis I have come to a new appreciation of the place of touch in psychotherapy and feel that Somatic Psychotherapy occupies a very important niche. I also have come to believe that an integration of the body work with the psychodynamic is entirely possible and critical to working with some people. It has particular relevance for those who have suffered great trauma in their early lives.

The knowledge base for psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and Somatic Psychotherapy in particular is also expanding rapidly. The very recent burgeoning of knowledge of the neural pathways in the brain related to emotional development has opened up the possibility of a more credible theory base for the long held somatic understanding of Neo-Reichians. This, together with the developmental approach to psychotherapy as proposed by Stanley Greenspan and integrative work done by the likes of Allan Schore, Peter Fonagy and others have forged new links between the effects of trauma and deprivation, attachment patterns and the capacities for reflective self-awareness and self-regulation of affect.

More and more it also seems possible that there is a common meeting ground between object relations and an intersubjective approach to the therapeutic relationship. Finally, it seems certain that touch itself and direct work with the body that is integrated into that therapeutic relationship can also play an important role in mitigating the worst effects on the brain itself, of early trauma and deprivation.

It is the possibility of putting all this knowledge together in the context of psychotherapy that excites me and offers most hope for real change for many clients in the future.

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