Home

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 and telehealth when available.

I have a Masters degree qualification and am a Registered Clinical Counsellor with PACFA (Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, 24364). I am a provider for Victim Support Services ACT, BetSafe EAP and a number of private health funds. Check with me if you have insurance – Bupa, AHM, Medibank, HCF, Rural Health (emergency services & others).

I will work with you to explore your situation, thoughts and feelings. We will progress at your pace, creating safety and working towards mutual understanding as we go. The way I work favours the longer term, as it is a relational depth psychotherapy. To get the most benefit from therapy I recommend a commitment to attending regular ongoing sessions.

Longer term depth psychotherapy offers you an opportunity to explore your self, your relationships and to experience changes within these two realms that are permanent and freeing.

Session information

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

I am currently unable to make any new client appointments as I have no available spaces. I am happy to receive your enquiry regardless and I will make a note of your contact. In the meantime, have a look at my Relevant Links page and see if there is a lead there you can follow.

Contact me to 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.

2024 Fees* – My session fee is $150 for private individuals, $180 for couples, family or corporate payees. Fees are due at the completion of the session and can be paid by cash, direct debit, or by credit card. Due to the reservation of your regular therapy time slot, payment is required for sessions cancelled with less than 24 hrs notice for any avoidable reason.

NDIS:
Billed at the NDIA set rate and is for plan or self-managed funds only.

At this time, no medicare rebates are available for Counsellors and Psychotherapists.  At present only psychologists & Mental Health Social Workers are eligible. However, the full fee is equivalent or less than most psychologist gap-payments with a medicare rebate deducted.

For a small monthly fee (from $5) you may access my Patreon page, which is like an online blog that you can subscribe to. I have posted on there about how I work, what happens in therapy, client concerns and various topics including what therapy is – Somatic Intersubjective Self Psychology based psychotherapy:

https://patreon.com/clarityofselfpsychotherapy

From a basic psychodynamic orientation, and a theoretical framework of self psychology, 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.

Karen Stewart

https://www.credly.com/badges/c616ae7c-cead-4b27-849d-7d335d5da92e/public_url

*Fee - Where does the fee go?  I try to stay affordable while earning a basic living but still, it may seem like a lot - more than an average wage rate, however $150/$180 per session is for about 2 hrs of my time plus oncosts:
- 30% contributes towards direct costs - primarily rent, supervision fees, registration & insurance, some PD, supplies etc.
- 20% contributes towards indirect costs - training & supervision time, annual & sick leave & where possible some superannuation.
Due to the intensity of the work, and my focus with each client, A full client load is approx. 15-20 spaces per week, less cancellations due to illness, away times etc.

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 qualification from the University of Canberra. Karen is a clinically registered counsellor with PACFA (Psychotherapist and Counselling Federation of Australia).

Karen presented a paper at the International Association of Psychoanalytic Self Psychology 2023 International Conference and has published in the IAPSP journal (April 2024). Ongoing learning and self reflection is a way of life for Karen.

Karen will work with anyone who wants to access therapy and has a wide variety of clientele – all ages (primarily from 14 up), genders (LGBQT), trauma histories (obvious & invisible trauma), diversely abled (Downs Syndrome, ABI, sensorily and physically impaired, varied neurodiversity). Her specialisations include working with people who have experienced trauma (all types of trauma), those living with chronic illness, disordered eating (trained as an Eating Disorder Clinician in 2022 with lived experience of AN) and/ or disability (varied types of ability).

(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. Psychotherapy helps to uncover the ‘hiding in plain sight’ and the well hidden, clever, stubborn, entrenched strategies that no longer serve us well.

Why Psychotherapy?

Because it works! Therapy can be hard going at times but that is because over time, we may get to the real heart of your issues together. It can also be an amazing process of discovery and realisation never before imagined (after all – how can you imagine what you have never experienced?).

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, in a client focused, respectful mutual 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).

Contact

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