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Welcome to CLARITY of SELF

This website describes my Canberra based practice, Clarity of Self which offers:

Face to face, individual psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Counselling – client focused and directed, trauma informed.

I will work with you to explore your situation and thoughts and feelings, in order to lessen your pain and discomfort. What you bring to therapy to discuss or work on is your choice. It can be a single issue or concern, or a general dissatisfaction with your way of being in the world and your self. We will progress at your pace, creating safety and mutual understanding as we go.

Therapy offers you an opportunity to explore your self and make changes within a relationship that is supportive and optimistic.

From a basic psychodynamic orientation, I incorporate other modalities in my work such as Mindfulness, Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I include a focus on bodily emotional experience (somatic awareness). The body holds a wisdom that is true. Voicing or interpreting what the body already knows helps us to further understand our selves, allowing for change and insight. Our body is our vessel which contains us and is us.

Session information

Psychotherapy and counselling sessions are 50 minutes in length and are by appointment only.

Make a first appointment for us to meet and learn a bit about each other, then an initial 3 or 4 sessions is recommended to begin. It is important you feel I am someone you can work with.

Fees – Vary according to your situation. Please discuss with me. Fees are due at the completion of the session and can be paid by cash, direct debit, or by credit card. Credit card payments attract a fee of 2%.

The clinic – below is a picture of me and then the clinic – the building, the ground floor clinic door and then one of the chairs in my room at Thrive Therapies. The clinic space is private, quiet and calm. When you enter the building, go straight ahead across the foyer. The door to Thrive Therapies is directly ahead and offset to the left. Enter the clinic and wait in the waiting room which is directly to the right when inside the front door. This is a roomy and quiet space. I will collect you from the waiting room at the appointment time. Bathrooms are located in the building foyer to the left of the front door of the building as you enter. Parking is available in the surrounding streets and is meter parking. The clinic is close to the city so the bus and light rail are not far away.

Karen Stewart

About Me

Karen has professional experience working in the areas of trauma (developmental & relational and single incident), bereavement (sudden death, suicide), domestic violence, parenting and behaviour management, depression and anxiety (for full details see Professional Work History below).

With the combination of a sharp analytical mind and a sensitive and creative personality, Karen is a compassionate and effective psychotherapist & counsellor. Karen has a Master of Counselling from the University of Canberra. Karen is a registered counsellor with PACFA (Psychotherapist and Counselling Federation of Australia).

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Philosophy

I believe that all people are innately creative and clever. Through our unique experiences in life, we have responded creatively and cleverly to survive and adapt to our situation and our lived history.

As children we may have withdrawn and hid, or ran, or fought, and we developed any number of techniques for survival of our selves – our sensitive feeling selves, and our physical selves.

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Why Psychotherapy?

Because it works!

I will work with you on whatever you bring to therapy, whether it is to work out a specific issue in the short term, or to address a more entrenched way of feeling or being that requires a longer timeline. I am guided by the needs and wishes of my clients, each individually. in a client focused, respectful exchange.

The aim of therapy is to make living our life easier. It is about getting to know yourself better, and ultimately make changes to patterns of feeling, thinking and behaving.
Psychotherapy provides a safe non-judgemental space in which to work on your self with the help of a qualified, empathic, nurturing and skilled person.

“In particular, the research indicates that body-focused psychotherapy is effective for a range of issues (Bloch-Atefi & Smith, 2014) including where talking therapies are unable to effectively treat the condition (Gordon et al., 2008; Röhricht, 2009).” (Thomas, 2018, p. 8 – see below).

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