Someone spoke to me recently of the ‘dark’ emotions: anger, envy, hatred, jealousy. These are the feelings we don’t think we should feel and so we have learned to try and suppress them. We often do not recognise them, let alone dare to name them to ourselves. The one I notice most people avoiding is anger, maybe because they associate the feeling with violence. But anger is just a feeling. And feelings never hurt anyone. Whereas what we do as a response to our feelings may indeed be hurtful or damaging. And not necessarily to others, but to ourselves.

A wise woman once told me that I could have the freedom of responsibility. It took me a while to get my head around that phrase. I didn’t like the sound of it. More stuff for me to do? In what seemed an already overly responsible life? I could not relate the two terms for a while. Freedom and responsibility…how do they go together? But eventually I realised that she was talking about magic: the magic that I secretly relied on, in my deep self, where my knots of anxiety reside. The secret something that would intervene when all else failed. The benign energy that would say: OK, she’s had enough. Give her a break now.

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For a long time, hundreds of years, we have believed that the mind was separate from the body. No one was very clear about where the mind was situated, maybe in the brain somewhere, but it was this mysterious substance that was referred to as ‘myself’.

Many practitioners now, and Gestalt practitioners especially, regard the whole self as ‘myself’, meaning body, emotions, mind and spirit. This is what is meant by holism.

I will be encouraging you, at times, to pay attention to your body and what it might be telling you. You may have had a lifetime of disregarding your body, cutting it off from your head, using it as a storeplace for unwanted and painful self-knowledge. Sometimes this leads to feelings of stress and anxiety, to fatigue, loss of appetite, body aches, headaches, stomach problems, and many other symptoms. Of course it may be that you have a physical illness, and if you haven’t explored that with your doctor, you will be encouraged to do so.

However, if it transpires that you have become disconnected from your body, numbed to the reality of old and uncomfortable knowledge, we will try to bring your knowing back into awareness, to give you a sense of being in your own body, to feel ‘gathered’.

Jim Kepner wrote: “If you can’t feel and identify with much of what’s happening in your body, you are missing a lot of critical information about your own life”.

Take some time to consider some common phrases:

• My heart broke
• I can’t stomach it
• It hit me in my guts
• I am so tired of this
• He/she is a pain in the neck

What have you been telling yourself? And what have you not been telling yourself?

People decide to come to a counsellor or therapist for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes you may feel unsure for a while. If you have never done this before, it can feel pretty strange. Or coming to therapy may be something you are unwilling to reveal to others because of shame or embarrassment - in our culture there is still some stigma attached to attending a therapist. Rest assured that your attendance will be held in confidentiality as much as your work will be.

Abuse of all kinds wounds us deeply at every level, the implications of it reverberating throughout our lives. You may feel it’s too hard or too shocking to talk about but there is no requirement to talk about anything until you are ready. This is your space and may be used at your own pace and to your own comfort level.

In recent years I have worked as the team leader for a group of people who support those with severe and enduring mental illness. Some of the people managing such challenges respond well to therapeutic support which I am happy to provide.

Many address depression, anxiety and the after effects of trauma by harming themselves, by having suicidal thoughts, and perhaps even by making attempts on their own lives. It is very important to seek help if this describes you. Help is available through counselling and therapy as well as many organisations.

We can talk about how best to find the help you need but if you need urgent assistance, let someone know now.

Call your doctor, a mental health crisis service or dial 000 and say that your life is at risk.

You can go to the local hospital emergency department for assessment, or call:

Lifeline 13 11 14 for 24hr Telephone Crisis Support
Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467
Kids Helpline 1800 551 800

These days we can find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place. We know a lot more than we ever did about children and their needs but our world has changed. Many of us want to have children but are passionate about a career, or really need to continue to work to meet all the expenses of modern life. Many really don’t want to have a family but find it hard to say so, or find themselves at odds with their partner. And many decide to wait until the time seems right, but then have difficulty conceiving.

These are just some of the issues that people face. Prenatal counselling can be a good idea to consider these and other problems, for example:

• Do we want to have a baby?
• What is the reality of a baby in the family?
• What do babies need from us?
• How can we prepare ourselves?

Maybe you made all these decisions, constructed a dream, and now the baby is here – but somehow the joy you expected has not come with this tiny creature. Life is hard, you’re always tired, there’s no space for you to be you any more. We can talk about:

• Finding it hard to love your baby
• Adjustment from the old life to this demanding new one
• Post birth trauma
• Postnatal depression
• Losses – in health, yours or your baby’s; of the perfect pregnancy; of the imagined birth; of the plan to breastfeed; of your life as a couple
• Being a Dad is lonely and there seems to be no room for me
• I am worried by all that is expected of me as a Dad

Or there may have come to you a great grief. The loss of a baby is an unspeakable thing but it must be spoken and it must be endured, perhaps for much longer or more deeply than those around you expect.  Not alone though.

“Give sorrow words.
The grief that does not speak
Whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.”
(William Shakespeare)

My initial training was with the Gestalt Institute of New Zealand (GINZ) and the Ashburn Clinic in Dunedin, New Zealand.

My interest in this work grew out of a ten year career as an independent midwife. Covering a large area geographically, I visited my clients in their homes and supported them to have their babies at home or in hospital. I worked with them throughout the childbearing year, meaning that they booked with me early in pregnancy, and I cared for them throughout their pregnancy, birth and to six weeks postpartum. This work meant a deep involvement with my clients as my care was delivered within the context of their families and their lives. This insight into family life and relationship, together with my curiosity about my own history and development, inspired a desire to know more and to work with people in a different way.

Later I qualified and worked as a lactation consultant to support myself during my training in psychotherapy. This work proved to be a gift as I saw, at close hand, the formation of new families, or the adjustments that are made in established families as they accommodate their new member. Many people do not realise that lactation work is about more than food: its success is deeply based in the family relationships, and particularly the mother/baby relationship, the dyad. This is where we begin to make who we are in the world, and much of what happens during this early time will have a profound impact on the rest of life.

My work is challenging but deeply satisfying. I love it. Sometimes people spend only a short time with me, looking for solutions to problems and ways to manage particular events, or sharing their sorrows and finding their way through grief. Others come for the longer term, exploring and reflecting on the way they are in the world, and looking for ways to effect deep and lasting change.

The research shows that the work done in psychotherapy goes on helping and changing people even after they are no longer attending. The treasures you find in this often difficult work are hard won but they are yours for life.

My name is Barbara Churcher and I live and work in the Bayside area of Melbourne.

I am a psychotherapist trained in Gestalt and psychodynamic approaches, and I have been working in private practice for over a decade now.

While I have listed on a later page some of the issues I am interested in, be aware that whatever you bring will be of interest to me. I look forward to meeting you and working with you to find ways for you to address your problems and move towards a greater understanding of yourself.

If you have questions and prefer to talk rather than read, we can cover these at an initial interview, or you may choose to send me a query through the ‘Contact me’ page.

Learn more about me

Some of the individual services I offer are:

• Relationship Counselling
• Supervision for those in the helping professions
• Pregnancy and Birth Counselling
• Counselling for Panic and Anxiety
• Trauma and Therapy
• Self Harm and Suicidal Thoughts