ABOUT ALYSON

I established The Centre for Counselling and Therapeutic Services on the Bellarine Peninsula near Geelong in 2017 to provide counselling support, therapeutic care and practical information to people for a range of life circumstances. I have a particular interest in supporting and counselling people navigating grief and loss, life-limiting illness, death and non-death loss, trauma and stress. These interests emerge from a culmination of my lived experiences of love, loss, life, death and everything in between, not in the least what it meant to grow up in an airforce family.

How my early years shaped my counselling career

In the early years of my life, ‘home’ was little more than a concept. My parents met in the Royal Australian Air Force (R.A.A.F). They were married within 5 months of that meeting, and the following spring, I was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. It was the early 1970’s. The Airforce way of life meant that for the first 15 years of my life, I moved home, school and community every 12 – 18 months. I went to five primary schools, two high schools, lived in five states, two countries and moved house 11 times before I turned 12.

For the first ten years of my life, I had little more than a temporary sense of ‘home’, and hence there were times when I really didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere. The transient nature and culture of the Airforce was unique, and not a commonly shared experience amongst my peers. On the one hand, the lifestyle was a great adventure, whilst on the other hand, the sorrow of departure became a heavy burden to bear.

As an adult, I worked and travelled around North America and Europe for an extended period of time. This was the gift that emerged from constant home moves: a sense of adventure that took me to faraway places. I spent seven years living in the Northern Territory before returning to Melbourne where I now make my home in the Geelong region of Victoria.

‘Coming home’ to your ‘centre’ through therapy

I offer individual counselling, psychotherapy, and group therapy to adults wanting to find, or re-discover a sense of ‘home’ inside themselves.

Understanding your emotions

As a counsellor, my intention is to support you to experience your emotions as signposts to self-understanding, compassion and awareness, rather than problems to be solved (in therapy).

Like water, emotions can be considered as continually moving. Sometimes calm, stormy, unpredictable, flowing, and sometimes hot or cold. I believe that by acknowledging and accepting all emotions as meaningful, you can learn to ‘dance with your feet in the water’, creating a pathway to living your life in ways that matter to you, for the benefit of yourself and the world around you.

Qualifications and Training

A trained counsellor, Somatic Experiencing practitioner (SEP) and DRUMBEAT facilitator, I have over 20 years of extensive counselling experience..

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Counselling – Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP)
• Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)- Somatic Experiencing Australia
• Diploma Transpersonal Counselling – Phoenix Institute of Victoria
• Cert IV Alcohol and Other Drugs – Dept of Health, NT Govt.

Training

• Accredited senior DRUMBEAT Facilitator – Holyoake Institute, WA.
• Sandplay Training Modules I, II, III and Relationships in the Sand – Tracks in the Sandtray, NT.
• The Wheel of Existential Practice – The Centre for Existential Practice, NSW

Register No: 22685

Professional Associations

Loss and Grief Practitioners Network (LGPA)

Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). Reg. Clinical (Register No: 23894)

Book a counselling appointment

Learn more about my services and rates and about my counselling process. Servicing Geelong, Bellarine Peninsula and the Surf Coast regions I provide counselling and therapy sessions in person, via the web (Zoom) or via the telephone. Contact me today to book an appointment.

MISSION
To provide the conditions that support the acknowledgment of all human emotions, and experience as signposts to meaningful self-understanding, compassion and growth.

VISION

To live in a world where people are understood and accepted as each having a story to tell, and that accepting the story as meaningful, whilst allowing space for the story to emerge, ultimately leads to a sense of  ‘home’ and ‘belonging’.

VALUES

• Acceptance
• Freedom
• Curiosity
• Playfulness and creativity
• Trust
• Bodily knowing

If you would like to read an overview of our services, please click here 

If you would like to know more about working with me, please click here