Professional Biography
Starting Out
The profession of counselling called to me in my late 20’s. Leading up to this point, I had worked in unskilled and skilled roles in Australia and overseas; from restaurants and industrial laundries, to teaching foreign languages and mathematics to secondary students, and working with women and children fleeing domestic violence.
An innate interest in humanity and the human condition and the nature of life on this planet, a healthy intellect, an introverted disposition, with a strong dash of extroversion when it comes to thinking, and a friendly, caring and enquiring nature have combined to make a pretty good fit between me and a working as a counsellor. To this day I remain vitally interested my counselling practice. No two clients or conditions are identical. I continue to learn, develop and improve my practice every time I sit down to find out how I might be able to work with a client.
I studied to post graduate level in the fields of counselling and psychology as a mature-age student. I thereby learned about and acquired the preliminary skills and techniques necessary to work effectively and professionally with people exploring and experiencing personal difficulties in their lives.
Since my formal studies I have pursued continuing professional development (CPD) each year to update, refresh, add to and build on that initial education, as well as to acquire psychotherapeutic models of and skill sets for working with people when those methods may work better than counselling or psychological techniques.
Working in the Community Sector
For the first 15 years of my counselling career I worked in the community sector; first in a women’s refuge with women and children fleeing domestic violence, and later as a financial counsellor with people experiencing the effects of poverty and financial hardship. Working with clients of these services educated me well beyond my own life experiences. I learned about what constitutes respect for difference in human beings, cultures, socioeconomic groups, age, family dynamic and history, sexual orientation, gender and identity, education, religion, philosophy, ability, health and wellbeing.
People shared their stories and difficulties, often in great detail, thereby permitting me to work alongside them to find ways through situations which they felt lost in or overwhelmed by on their own. Due to people privileging me in my professional role, I was thereby educated in the causes and nature of hardship, the misuse and abuse of power in relationships and in society, the influence of money and authority on people in positions of power, in general some of the highs and lows of human nature, societies and cultures, and of life on this planet, the power of information and influence, the difference between compassion and false charity, the responsibility of helping professionals to understand rather than to judge, how to help people in the way they want to be helped, and that the most important requirement of my work is that what my client and I do in sessions translates to sustainable change in the client’s life outside of sessions.
What I grew to understand is that life and human nature both supports and tests us all. No-one is exempt over time. Privately or publicly everyone is confronted with what they have made of themselves and how they have conducted themselves.
Private Practice
For the past 16 years up to the present, I have focussed my professional efforts in private practice. As a counselling therapist I engage with people who are at pivotal points in life or within themselves, especially at times when they are at a loss as to how to proceed, are overwhelmed, or decide they no longer want to walk through life confused and miserable.
I work alongside people, helping them to engage more fully with their personhood, working with them to understand themselves and what has shaped them, about the nature of the relationship between their mind, body, spirit and soul, with the nature of their circumstances and their place in them, with how human nature, relationships, life and the world around them work and interact, how to live and grow through the pleasant and the unpleasant in life, with conditions and circumstances, some uncomfortable or not of their choosing.
My approach is a combination of generating a sense of engagement within, of generating interest in issues and states which may have been previously avoided, of developing the grounds and means of self-care and self-respect, creating a safe space and method for people to explore and develop themselves, to access both painful and beautiful things in a manageable way, to understand oneself in the world and make some sense of the nature of life, to gain some understanding, clarity and insight, to make sustainable change in both inner and outer lives according to what is relevant to my client(s), and to be able to relate to loved ones and significant people authentically and respectfully, engendering trust and appreciative, loving relationships.
Professional Registration
I made a considered decision after finishing my studies to register as a counsellor with PACFA (http://www.pacfa.org.au/) rather than as a psychologist. Counselling and psychotherapeutic approaches provide a multitude of ways of working which I find help my clients to the greatest extent. Psychological techniques play their part in my practice but constitute a small percentage of the methods that my clients strongly connect to and derive benefit from (read more FAQs for definitions of counselling, psychotherapy, social work and psychology).
Academic Qualifications:
Bachelor of Arts with the Diploma of Education (Macquarie University, 1979)
Graduate Diploma in Community Counselling (University of Canberra, 1995)
Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology (University of Canberra, 2000)
Professional Registrations
Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia [PACFA] (reg) Clinical 20420
PACFA Accredited Mental Health Practitioner
PACFA (reg) Clinical Supervisor
Trish Walsh Counselling 