A counselling space for Helpers
Throughline Counselling provides in-person counselling in Bendigo and online therapy in Australia for helping professionals and others navigating burnout, trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, and life changes.
Welcome
"Balance between work, and our own needs are rarely just about boundaries or self-care".
Hi, I'm Frederikke Jensen, She/Her, a narrative therapist and Master's qualified counsellor. based in Bendigo. Some of the people I work with have already tried setting boundaries, taking leave, or prioritising self-care, yet still feel stuck, or disconnected from their work and relationships.
Tending to others requires tending to ourselves
I have particular experience and understanding of people who support others, and while my therapeutic work isn't limited to occupational problems or people in professional helping roles, I also welcome others seeking therapy.
Burnout, vicarious trauma and psychosocial hazards are inherent occupational risks in helping professions. Like anyone else, people who support others also experience grief, loss, trauma, anxiety and depression.
Our personal and professional worlds intersect, but often how we are as people is reflected in how we cope with problems elsewhere. Therapy tending to our inner lives and personal dynamics can therefore change how we live, work and love.
The model of therapy I use offers time to think, reflect and make sense of experiences that are often difficult to hold alone. Even if you understand intellectually what the problem is, you might need another mind and a therapeutic space to help you experience your way through difficult emotional experiences—helpers are no exception to needing therapy.
A therapeutic approach to mental well-being beyond techniques and symptoms
Symptoms such as not sleeping, feeling anxious, or feeling irritable or distant from others tell us something is wrong—but symptoms do not tell the full story.
If taking time off work, self-help, or technique-based therapy hasn't brought lasting change, exploratory talk therapy—including narrative therapy—offers an opportunity to better understand yourself and your relationships.
Rather than focusing on symptom reduction alone, exploratory and relational talk therapy invites curiosity about the patterns and experiences that give rise to distress. Words are cheap, though, and thinking harder and trying to work things out cognitively rarely works in isolation, which is why tending to emotions in the here and now in the therapeutic relationship matters as well.
A thousand repetitions of a different experience is what helps
Said a little tongue-in-cheek, to change something we have done for decades, such as saying ‘yes’ to doing too much work because we feel obligated, won’t usually change long-term unless we have reached the taproot of the problem. A little exaggerated here as it is just an example—we need a thousand different experiences (in therapy) of being able to say, ‘No, I didn’t like that’ and being met with curiosity instead of punishment to feel okay to say no.
Therapeutic modality and background
Coming from a psychology undergraduate degree, I trained in narrative therapy as it aligns with my understanding of people’s difficulties as originating from their relationships, history, culture, experiences of oppression, trauma and grief.
Narrative therapy is about making meaning of experiences, approaching problems with curiosity rather than judgement. In my experience, self-judgement often accompanies burnout and trauma. Rather than treating self-judgment as the enemy, therapy invites us to understand what it might be trying to tell us.
Whilst narrative therapy is my primary modality, my approach is also influenced by contemporary psychodynamic thinking and relational practice. This shapes how I understand the therapeutic relationship and the influence of earlier life experiences in the present moment.
Alongside Throughline Counselling, I also work in a leadership role within a human services organisation. This ongoing work continues to inform my understanding of helping professionals, workplace wellbeing and the emotional demands of working with people and systemic pressures on leaders and workers alike.
If you'd like to know more about my background, you can read more about me here.
What guides my therapeutic work
Through both my clinical work and my own experience, I have come to believe that tending to our own wounds, by being held in mind by another person, is vital to longevity in a helping role and in finding resilience to adversity.
Trauma therapy is guided by sensitivity to pace and safety. Shame and other painful experiences are approached with curiosity rather than disavowed.
Over time, therapy can help us feel more connected—to ourselves, to other people, to our work and to the wider world.
Therapy is committed work undertaken in collaboration between therapist and client. Finding a therapist who not only understands you, but can help you bring about deep psychological change requires some considered effort—I hope my article on ‘how to find a therapist who understands me’ sparks some reflection for you.
If this resonates, get in touch to explore how counselling might support you or read more about my approach on the therapy page.
Throughline Journal
Finding throughlines of resilience, hope, and understanding in the midst of change
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