Our Services

At East Melbourne Psychology, we offer both one-on-one and couples counselling, to help work through a wide variety of life’s challenges.

One-on-one Counselling

Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal response to a stressful situation, that most people will experience at some point.

Anxiety mobilises us to be able to respond effectively to whatever the stressor is. When the anxiety is ‘normal’, it is manageable. However, when the anxiety level is extreme, we can struggle to respond to the stressful situation.

Symptoms of anxiety might include:

  • Persistent worrying thoughts

  • Physical symptoms such as upset stomach/nausea or headache, racing heart, trembling, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, restlessness.

  • Emotional outbursts that might include anger or irrational behaviour

  • Irritability

  • Avoidance behaviours

There is no single cause of anxiety, and often an anxiety disorder is the result of a number of different factors. Our therapists consider all of the possible causes for anxiety when developing a strategy for treatment.

Cancer diagnoses

A diagnosis of cancer is, for most people, devastating, and adjusting to a cancer diagnosis can be one of the most difficult and stressful times in a person’s life.

Health, financial, career, and relationship challenges that come from a cancer diagnoses are unique and are accompanied by a number of fears, regardless of the prognosis.

At East Melbourne Psychology, we are practiced in Psycho-oncology, which addresses the psychological responses that people have when they receive a diagnosis of cancer, as well as the behavioural and social aspects at all stages of the disease.

Seeking therapy is active form of confronting a cancer diagnosis that can help the patient or the loved ones feel more empowered to cope with what lies ahead.

Depression

Most of us will have felt down at one time or another and most of the time, we have a good reason for feeling that way.

However, when those feelings become more severe, persist for 2 weeks or more and they begin to affect our everyday lives, they can be considered to be a result of depression.

Signs of depression can include:

  • Feeling bad about yourself

  • Changes to your sleeping and/or eating patterns.

  • Feeling more pessimistic, angry, guilty irritable, or anxious

  • Enjoying things less

  • Experiencing up and down moods

  • Feeling more pain

  • Trouble with concentration and memory

  • Feeling de-motivated

  • Low energy

Depression may be the result of any number of things - from major life events to a build up of smaller stressors.

At East Melbourne Psychology, your therapist will talk through your symptoms and the likely causes to best ascertain how to treat your depression.

Other issues

Life throws us all sort of problems. At East Melbourne Psychology, we have seen quite a few of them. Our therapists have a wide-breadth of experience and knowledge to help you through the problems you might be facing.

This includes men’s issues, stress related to parenting, grief, chronic health issues, career issues, trauma, dietary concerns, and more.

We invite you to contact us so that we can arrange a session with one of our knowledgeable psychologists to help develop a treatment plan for whatever you may be facing.

Couples Counselling

Being a couples therapist requires special skills and our therapists have had years of training in this area. As in individual therapy, our couples therapists employ evidence based approaches combined with their years of experience that helps them to tailor the therapy to your needs.

Our couples therapists can work with you around a variety of issues including:

  • Communication

  • Affairs

  • Sexual issues

  • Parenting

  • Life stage/transition issues

  • Blended/Step families

  • Physical or mental illness

  • Pre-marital counselling

  • Developing a more respectful relationship

The space in couples therapy should offer a non-judgmental, safe environment to help you and your partner navigate difficulties in your relationship. Sometimes, this might mean working towards rebuilding your relationship, while sometimes, this may mean helping you through the separation process.

Depending on your circumstances, it may be appropriate for you or your partner to attend the session alone. This can be discussed with one of our psychologists when you call
to make an appointment.

Becoming a parent is possibly one of the biggest transitions a person will make in their lifetime. This enormous change often brings great joy, but also great stress.

Most parents know that how they parent will have a huge impact on their children. This can be and often is a hugely anxiety provoking concept – the idea that there might be a right way and a wrong way to parent and that how we parent could impact our children in devastating ways. We so want to do our best for our children.

However, all parents have limitations. These limitations can include having had poor role models in their own parents, or can be to do with current day stressors such as financial and job pressures, or issues in their relationships.

Therapy for parents might include exploring their family of origin experiences and reflecting on how these experiences play out in their own parenting style. Therapy might also include working on managing stress more effectively or work-shopping ideas about how to deal with a particular issue involving one of their children. Therapy might be about getting stuff off your chest or about getting information about the better parenting strategies.

Therapy might include an individual parent, both parents, or the whole family.

Parenting

Contact us.

If you have something on your mind, we’re ready to hear it. Reach out and we can help set up an appointment with one of our experienced therapists.