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. I have particular experience and understanding of people who support others, although my therapeutic work isn't limited to occupational problems or people in professional helping roles, and I also welcome others seeking therapy.
Tending to others requires tending to ourselves
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 emotions—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 work in isolation, which is why tending to emotions in the here and now in the therapeutic relationship matters.
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, approaching problems with curiosity rather than judgement. In my experience, judgement often accompanies burnout and trauma. For example, rather than treating self-judgment as the enemy, narrative 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. This shapes how I understand the therapeutic relationship and the influence of earlier life experiences in the present. If you'd like to know more about my background, you can read more 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.
Trauma therapy is guided by sensitivity to pace and safety. Shame and other painful experiences are approached with curiosity rather than disavowed.
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 is not effortless—I hope my article on ‘how to find a therapist who understands me’ sparks some reflection for you.
Throughline Journal
Finding throughlines of resilience, hope, and understanding in the midst of change
Next steps