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Welcome to CLARITY of SELF

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

Face to face, individual or couple psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Home visits when available.

I am a Masters degree qualified Registered Clinical Counsellor with PACFA (Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia). I am a Victim Support Services ACT provider and a BetSafe EAP Provider. I am a provider also for a number of private health funds so check with me if you have insurance – Bupa, AHM, Medibank, Rural Health (emergency services & others).

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, and a theoretical framework of self psychology, 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 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. It is important you feel I am someone you can work with, and I think I will be able to help you.

2022 Fees – My session fee is $130 for private individuals, $150 for couples, family or corporate clients. Fees are due at the completion of the session and can be paid by cash, direct debit, or by credit card.

NDIS:
Billed at the rate of $150/hr plus $70 travel for home visits and is for plan or self-managed funds only.

No medicare rebates are available.  At present only psychologists are eligible. However, the full fee is equivalent or less than most gap-payments with medicare mental health care plans and is available for as many sessions as you need per year, without the official diagnosis on your medical record that is required for a MH Plan..

Karen Stewart

Therapy room

About Me

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

With specialisation in working with people who have experienced trauma – from a working history including working with people who have experienced sudden bereavement, family and domestic violence, incarceration and relational and developmental trauma – Karen participates in regular supervision and training (blueKnot, Janina Fisher etc), to keep up to date re trauma treatment and safe practices. Karen also works with people living with disability of any type (for full details see Professional Work History below).

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).

Continue reading “Why Psychotherapy?”

Contact

To make an enquiry, contact Karen directly at the details below.