
Counselling Sessions With Individuals
Individual Counselling using Expressive Therapies, Somatic Experiencing®, NeuroAffective Touch® and Jungian Sandplay Therapy is available for individuals. These personal journeys of healing increase self awareness, emotional intelligence, embodiment and reconnection to inner resources.
Somatic Psychotherapy – An Embodied & Creative Approach to Wholeness, Healing and Integration.
A warm welcome to my in-person (and sometimes online) Counselling & Psychotherapy Practice. As a Post-Adoption Counsellor, I work primarily with children who have been adopted or who live in foster care, as well as with adult individuals who want to heal past or recent relational trauma due to a history of parent-child separation.
What is Somatic Psychotherapy, you may be wondering? “Somatic” simply means body-oriented. By focusing your awareness on internal sensation, emotion and physical movement, somatic psychotherapy allows you to experience your body in the present moment, because healing happens in the here and now. The word “Psychotherapy” is made up of two parts: ‘psyche’ meaning ‘soul’, and ‘therapy’ meaning, ‘to tend and care for’. So the practice of Somatic Psychotherapy is to tend and care for the body and soul.
As a qualified Counsellor and Psychotherapist with over 20 years experience, my aim is to offer you the opportunity to turn inward, towards the body and soul and to safely tend to any tensions that are currently present in your life through somatic, symbolic, archetypal, mythopoetic and expressive depth processes. I offer both online and face-to-face sessions in my serene, nature-surround, private counselling studio on Gubbi Gubbi land, on the beautiful Sunshine Coast, Qld.
Just like nature, I firmly believe that all of us are whole and complete just as we are. All the wisdom we need is right here, right now, inside us, simply waiting to be expressed, embodied and lived through our one precious life. It is my great privilege to witness and guide you (or your child) on your path to wholeness.
Throughout my career I have been drawn to experiential processes that get to the heart of the matter. Processes that get underneath the chatter of the mind and that touch the places inside we rarely listen to, yet hold great wisdom for our lives. I believe that our psyche and soma (mind and body) are intricately connected to each other, to nature and to the collective. In our sessions, I will encourage you to turn with curiosity towards your inner, most authentic Self, in order to face the inevitable suffering of life and to create meaning from the challenging, and often beautiful, experiences life has thrown your way.
I value and will always strive to create a safe therapeutic space and relationship with you that welcomes all of who you are through self-expression, movement, therapeutic touch and symbolic representation. I welcome the shadow parts; the young, innocent and often wounded parts; the yet-to-be known parts; the oh-so-loving parts; and the wise-ancient parts. I commit to continuously growing alongside you, as we traverse the often times mysterious and mystical path towards a life worth living.
Through my own extensive process of integrating early mother-infant separation, adoption trauma and attachment disruption, I have followed many pathways to the soul, to the heart and to the body. Some of these include: Jungian Sandplay Therapy, Expressive Therapies, Somatic Experiencing®, Dynamic Attachment Repatterning experience, NeuroAffective Touch®, Family Constellations, Yoga, Meditation and Holotropic Breathwork. From my extensive training and work with clients, and my own personal life experience, I bring a depth and warmth to my clinical practice to support and guide individuals on their path of self-awakening and growth.
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“I really loved the depth of play I experienced in the Sandplay and Symbol Work. Monique’s experience and wisdom within the field makes it easy and effortless to trust in each of the processes. Her presence is calm and reassuring.”
“Monique, thank you so much for such a powerful and healing training. I appreciate how much energy you put in to your training and wish to acknowledge you for your beautiful presence throughout. You are an incredible teacher and therapist and such an amazing role model for us to learn from. I am so grateful that I made the decision to invest in my personal and professional development. I sense that this course will be life changing for me.”
“Monique’s ability to hold a safe, nurturing space in which to learn and heal was paramount to the emotional, relational and intellectual depth I was able to go to in the training.”
“The highlight for me was the blend of experiential and theoretical. It was just right! Monique was compassionate and experienced with a good understanding of the range of material across Sandplay, Symbol Work and Trauma theories. This was an enticing introduction to a great combination of topics. It was well presented, informative and enriching. There was a good mix of personal and professional learning.”
“Monique was excellent! She has a great knowledge of both Trauma and Sandplay. Her sensitivity and skill as a therapist came into play allowing greater focus on the experiential aspect of learning the content and tools.”
“This course was invaluable, surprising, unfolding and growthful! Monique is awesome. She has a wealth of knowledge, is supportive, experienced and flexible. I loved discovering new parts of myself, the connections I made with other colleagues and the case presentations. Engaging in my own Sandplay Process has been most informative in my work with clients. I have learned to trust the process and am more present with my clients.”
“I am more confident that I can connect with children and build trust as well as a deeper and more reflective practice. Monique brings a passion and genuineness to this work. Her experience working with children and parents was evident and useful.”
“Monique is absolutely lovely & wonderful! She has such a great mix of personal, accessible energy along with depth and breadth of experience, as well as the ability to convey theoretical concepts clearly.”
“I loved the whole program, but especially enjoyed the Sandplay activities. This was my first experience with Sandplay Therapy and I was very excited by it and its potential. I love Monique’s style of sharing her knowledge. She is warm, kind, safe, generous, knowledgable and awesome!! This training was absolutely inspiring!”
“This course has completely changed the way I work. It gave me the most appropriate model of therapy for children experiencing domestic violence. I enjoyed learning in a supportive, mindful and inspiring environment. Monique is a wonderful teacher. She lives and breathes what she teaches and inspired me to do the same.”
“Monique is so masterful and authentic. She is delightful and brought symbols and Sandplay to life. This training was enriching and transformative. It will change my practice and my ability to work with people in any context.”