‍The question you might have is: Should I choose a psychologist, a counsellor or a social worker? I have a different and long-winded answer compared to the usual opinion pieces you might find on therapy service sites, AI overviews in Google, ChatGPT or social media.

The question of feeling understood by your therapist is often central when evaluating whether therapy with a particular therapist is right for you.

If you are looking for a counsellor or other mental health professional in Bendigo, this question may feel particularly important if you are someone who spends much of your life caring for, leading, teaching or offering therapy to others.

I wrote this article because exposure to trauma, crisis, and high emotional demand is often normalised within helping professions. Many workers quietly carry significant strain while feeling unsure about what support they should reasonably expect from their workplace — or when they may need support beyond supervision and debriefing.

Yes. Helping professionals are shaped by relational wounds, losses, and hardships just like everyone else. Regardless of our academic studies and professional training, our feelings are stirred in professional and personal relationships, just like anyone else’s.

This article answers common questions such as: Is weekly therapy more effective than fortnightly sessions? How often should therapy be for lasting change?

Lasting change rarely comes from occasional counselling sessions, especially when your struggles have been present for a long time. Consistent, weekly therapy creates the conditions for deeper and more sustained change.

If you have been wounded relationally, you may be wary with good reason about choosing a therapist or going to therapy at all. This is why pacing, a safe relationship and consistency are important in trauma-sensitive therapy.

The difficulty of being unable to speak your mind can come from many places. If it has been with you for decades and since you were a young child, it may take time to get to a place, even in therapy, where you feel you can speak up and be the authentic you.

Should I choose a therapist who specialises in a specific mental health problem or diagnosis, such as anxiety or depression?

Grief counselling is not just about grief, and the process of mourning often encompasses more than the ache of loss — to make sense of what has happened, approaching relationships, be it with people, with a job loss, a loss of a physical capacity, or a home, we can say “hello again”, but on different terms.

I work with people affected by suicide loss, including family members, friends, colleagues, health professionals, social workers, teachers, disability workers, first responders and others whose lives have been touched by suicide. Losing someone to suicide can leave people with grief, shock, guilt, confusion, anger and many unanswered questions.

It is the time of year for get-togethers of all sorts. But it is also a time of painful loneliness for some and yearnings of belonging.

Narrative therapy is a respectful, non-blaming approach to counselling, which centres people as the experts in their own lives.

Sadness is with us. A young boy in Bendigo, Central Victoria, died yesterday, hit by a truck while walking to school.

We need fathers as helpers, nurturing our young men into adulthood. What do you wish for your young man? What do you want him to learn from you?

What first inspired me to write this journal entry was a fellow counsellor’s offer of a Brave Belonging Circle for skilled migrants in Australia.

Bloom is an animated story about how the power of human connection can light us up when we feel stuck in the dark. I put it here to remember what we as humans may yearn for when ‘way out’ thoughts come around

If you work in the helping sector, you know all of this; time and resources are scarce in the helping sectors in Australia. You feel it, see it and experience it daily. You might be a helping professional who queries, how can I keep going due to the lack of time to do the work properly. How can I keep going with the impact that work has on my personal life? How can I keep going, seeing how the dignity and well-being of clients or patients I support are violated?

The papering over of hardship, perceiving people as doing just fine and ignoring pain, can feel invalidating and minimising.