Australia

Anca Ramsden – Founder

Email: bestmindset@bigpond.com

Dr Martha Landman

http://www.nqtraumacentre.com.au

 

Annie Ploughman

MA Clinical Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, 2001

Annie is a Clinical Psychologist and is registered with AHPRA (Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency). She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and of The Clinical College of the Australian Psychological Society.

Annie completed her Undergraduate degree with Honours in 1996, and her Masters of Clinical Psychology degree at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia in 2001. Her thesis was entitled Identity and Methadone: Performing the Meaning of “Drug Addict”. It focussed on the difficulties people encounter as they attempt to carve a new life for themselves away from drugs.

With over 15 years’ experience as a counseller and psychotherapist, Annie’s therapeutic approach is informed by mindfulness, psychodynamic therapy, Affect Regulation Therapy and current research in neuroscience. She draws inspiration from a personal interest in meditation with a particular focus on how practices such as meditation impact upon mental health and our overall sense of well-being.

Annie began her private practice in 1998. Since then she has assisted people struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma (including post-traumatic stress), abuse, childhood abuse, relationship issues, gay and lesbian issues, grief and loss, parenting difficulties, anger management, eating disorders, disability, alcohol and drug problems. Annie offers both short and longterm therapy. Within solution focussed short term intervention, relief or resolution to client problems can be achieved within weeks or months. She offers longer-term therapy, such as 12 months to several years, to clients with more severe and chronic problems, assisting them to change lifelong patterns and work toward a lasting sense of well-being.

Prior to working in private practice Annie worked in a range of psychological settings, including disability services (vision impairment), and drug and alcohol services. At Vision Australia (previously The Royal Blind Society) she helped clients manage and process emotions such as grief, fear and anger, often experienced following profound vision loss. She continues to counsel clients at Vision Australia and runs support groups for those adjusting to blindness and vision loss.

Annie has also counselled clients with smoking addictions and has worked in a methadone clinic supporting clients move away from the “drug addict” lifestyle.

Annie has lectured post graduate psychology students at Macquarie University and conducted corporate seminars on workplace counselling skills.

Currently, in addition to private practice, she teaches meditation to primary school aged children at Vajrayana Institute, Ashfield, Sydney, Australia.

Dr Alana Bowen

B. Psych (Hons), PhD, Assoc MAPS

Dr Alana Bowen completed a Bachelor of Psychology with First Class Honours in 2004 and a Doctor of Philosophy Postgraduate Degree in 2011 at James Cook University. She is a Registered Psychologist and is an Associate Member of the Australian Psychological Society.

Dr Bowen has clinical experience working with adults presenting with chronic stress, Major Depressive Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Posttraumatic stress disorder, Bipolar Affective Disorder, and Asperger’s syndrome. She has had experience working with individuals presenting with grief/loss reactions, trauma, suicidal ideations, and interpersonal relationship difficulties.

Dr Alana Bowen works from three locations in Townsville, Queensland. She has worked part-time in Private Practice at Halberstater House since 2006 mainly seeing clients via the Mental Health Care Plan. Dr Bowen also works part-time at a Disability Employment Service called NQ Employment since 2011, where she conducts individual counseling, group treatment programs, vocational assessments, intelligence tests, and psychological assessments. Since 2006, she has also worked as a Contract Facilitator at a group therapy program for traumatised military and paramilitary populations called the Trauma Recovery Centre, Townsville.

Dr Bowen’s PhD was entitled “The role of Disclosure and Resilience in Response to Stress and Trauma”. The core objectives of this dissertation were to extend emotion processing theory (Foa & Kozak, 1986) by examining the relationship among emotional disclosure (written and verbal), resilience (hardiness, self-efficacy, self-deception, and social support), and health-related consequences following stress and traumatic events.

Taken together, the findings of correlational, experimental and observational studies undertaken suggested that resilience and disclosure are important predictors of response to stress and trauma and in the recovery of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Singapore

Virginia de Souza

M.Soc.Sc. (Counselling)

Virginia de Souza completed her Masters degree in Social Science at the University of South Australia in 2003. Prior to this she completed a BA in Communication Management.

She is a registered counsellor and clinical supervisor with the Singapore Association for Counselling and she has been in practice in mental health settings for ten years. Prior to this Virginia had been in public relations and publication for 10 years.

She also has a Diploma in Transpersonal Art Therapy from IKON Institute in Perth, Australia and was awarded a Certificate in Analytical Psychology in 2003 after a three year course with the Australia-New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysis (ANZSJA). She is a Certified Solution Focused Therapist and a professional member of the Canadian Council of Professional Certification since 2006.

She has experience in working with clients of all ages, including children and the elderly. Her clinical experience spans across a range of mental health conditions. She has assisted clients with chronic stress, trauma, acute crises, major depression and anxiety, adjustment disorders and schizophrenia.

Virginia spent over six years at the National University of Singapore where she was senior counsellor and CARE manager leading the team in crisis intervention. At NUS she trained staff in crisis preparedness and basic counselling skills and developed customised crisis training material for NUS.

Currently Virginia is in private practice where she offers psychotherapy, customised training in various aspects of human development and clinical supervision.

She is also attached two days a week at Creative Hub, a community mental health centre of the Singapore Association for Mental Health (SAMH), servicing beneficiaries of SAMH as well as referred and walk-in members of the public. She runs classes on Wednesday nights in guided imagery and mindfulness for the public.

Virginia’s special interest lies in educating Singaporeans in Mind-Body Wellness. Her therapy models span across psychodynamic, interpersonal and developmental psychology, accommodating her individual clients’ special needs.

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Parandaman T.

Forensic Psychologist

M.Sc. Applied Forensic Psychology, University of Leicester, UK

Post Graduate Diploma: Aggression Management, Assessment & Therapy, University of Central Lancashire, UK

BA Psychology, Adam State College, UK

LMV- E Lead Therapist, National Health Systems Mersey Care, UK

MBPsS (272818) Forensic Div, UK 

Parandaman is trained in forensic psychology and works as an interventionist forensic psychologist consulting and treating children (including children with intellectual disabilities) with psychological and mental health issues, such as depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, ADHD, Conduct Disorder and Social Communication Disorders.

Within the forensic setting he is experienced in risk and needs assessments and psycho-diagnostic assessments. He evaluates children who exhibit maladaptive behaviours, such as pervasive anger, sexualized behaviours and stealing. He formulates and executes treatment plans and works in collaboration with psychiatrists where psycho-pharmacological treatment is indicated.

Parandaman has worked at The Centre for Addiction Recovery in Singapore (2010 – 2011) and has provided counselling and rehabilitation support for clients with addictions, including drug, alcohol, gambling, eating disorders and kleptomania. He also has experience in providing intensive individual psychotherapy using EMDR, Affect Regulation Therapy and CBT for patients with chronic alcohol and substance dependence issues.

He worked at Evergreen Place (2008-2010), a geriatric treatment centre in Singapore, as an associate psychologist primarily consulting to and treating patients who are frail and suffer from cognitive impairment such as dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

He is also trained in forensic interviewing of physically and sexually abused children, vulnerable adults and intellectually challenged children and adults. (Child Sexual Abuse Forensic Interviewing Certificate, Corner House, Minneapolis, 2012.) and provides this service on an ongoing basis to agencies.

Parandaman trained at University of Coventry, UK in risk and needs assessment tools, such as HCR – 20, SARA, J-SOAP II, “ERASOR”, “ARMIDILO” and PCLR VY and in cognitive and developmental psycho-diagnostic assessments of children and youths. He has experience in diagnosis of psychopathic characteristics in the mainstream as well as mid to low intellectual range pediatric population.

Parandaman is currently acting consultant to REDA, an organization dealing with at risk children and families, where he supervises a youth rehabilitation program targeting social problem behaviours within the Malay and Muslim community.

He is currently enrolled in a PhD Psychology program. His thesis topic is ‘Evaluating risk in relation to juvenile delinquency and future offending behaviour in children residing in secure facilities.’

He is also an off shore Clinical Supervisor for students enrolled in the Masters in Counselling at Monash University.

Since 2010 he has used A.R.T. as an effective intervention to treat trauma and acute stress in adults and children, chronic social behaviour problems, addictions and cognitive decline in the geriatric population.

South Africa

Yvonne Dobson

COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGIST (MA Counselling Psychology. U.P.E.):

Yvonne Dobson is a Counselling Psychologist with more than 23 years of work experience in the field of psychology, and 17 years in private practice.

She obtained a Bachelor of Social Sciences Degree at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa in 1984,and an Honours Degree in Psychology, and Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology at the University of Port Elizabeth (U.P.E.), South Africa. Her Master’s thesis subject was: ‘A Factor Analysis of the Life Role Inventory.’

Her internship included 6 months at Student Counselling services at U.P.E., and 6 months at the university Child and Family clinic. The work entailed counselling students for a range of difficulties, child and family assessments, neurological assessments, assessments for ADHD and learning difficulties, and psychotherapy for adults, adolescents, children and families.

From 1990 till 1996 she worked in the Counselling Department of the Department of Labour and her work responsibilities entailed therapy and assessments for public service employees, career counselling (group workshops and individual), personnel selection and placement assessments, researching, designing and development of training programmes (e.g.: “Entrepreneurship”, “Career Counselling”, “Human Relations” and “Client Services”), as well as psycho-educational programmes (e.g. ‘Short Course in Basic Career Guidance Skills for Youth Workers), presentation and implementation of these programmes in the communities and within the public service, supervision and training: of youth workers, psych technicians, psychometrists and counsellers and other appropriate personnel within the government with regard to using and applying all psycho-educational programmes and with regard to test interpretation, selection and placement recommendations, report writing, acting manager of portfolios, e.g. ‘Bursaries for Disabled Persons’ and ‘Community Workshops for Youth Workers.’

Yvonne has been in private practice since 1994 focussing on scholastic assessments, neurological assessments, career counselling, and personnel selections for companies, individual and group trauma debriefing and psychotherapy with children, adolescents and adults.

For the past 10 years, Yvonne has worked mostly with adults, ranging from 17 years to 85 years working with a range of mental health conditions which includes: depression; anxiety (obsessions, compulsions, fears, etc.); addictions (relationships, sex, work, drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.); stress and adjustments to life changes (work/career, divorce, death, ‘mid-life crisis’, stress and burnout, etc.); abuse (sexual, physical, emotional); acute and chronic stress and trauma and relationship difficulties.

Yvonne also offers supervision to psychologists, provides an ongoing pro-bona service to the community, and previously provided voluntary assistance with supervision and debriefing for trauma counsellers who work in the community.

In 2007 Yvonne developed and ran personal growth groups which included teaching clients skills and techniques to release stress and enhance personality development.

Her therapeutic approach is eclectic and draws on Existentialism, Developmental psychology, Psychodynamic and Self-psychology, Meditation, Hypnotherapy, Mindfulness Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Narrative Therapy, CBT and RET. Her professional development includes qualifying as a trained EFT (Emotional Freedom Therapy) practitioner, a certified Demartini facilitator and hypnotherapist.

Yvonne has a special interest in chronic trauma and has explored tools to assist clients with personality development and trauma release. For this purpose she is a certified A.R.T. practitioner using the technique effectively with clients experiencing aggression, depression, anxiety, childhood trauma, low self-esteem, and work-related difficulties.

New Zealand

Anne O’Kane

Registered General Nurse, New Zealand Nursing Council

Post Grad Diploma Psychotherapy, Auckland University of Technology 1998

Member New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists

Registered Psychotherapist

Anne initially trained as a general nurse at Greenlane Hospital, Auckland in 1972 and worked approximately 10 years in this profession in several hospitals in London, Sydney and Auckland, before completing a Post Graduate Diploma of Psychotherapy at Auckland University of Technology, graduating in 1998. Anne is a Registered Psychotherapist and a member of the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists.

Anne spent 13 years working with clients who had experienced trauma from sexual abuse and domestic violence at Waitakere Abuse and Trauma Counselling Centre. Her passion is empowering her clients to move beyond the limiting imprints of past traumas. To this end Anne uses an eclectic approach matched to individual client needs and including psychodynamic psychotherapy along with CBT, Gestalt, Cognitive Analytic Therapy and Affect Regulation Therapy.

Currently Anne works in private practice in Auckland where she offers psychotherapy to teenage and adult clients presenting with Major depression, Adjustment Disorder, Asperger’s Disorder, marital problems, history of abuse and trauma, identity issues, coping with transitions and grief. She offers short as well as long term psychotherapy for clients with chronic conditions.

Anne also supervises students from several counselling colleges as well as registered psychotherapists. Since 2010 she has hosted the A.R.T. Learning Support Groups in Auckland.

Anne has a special interest in mind and body medicine and therapy and based on her experience in the nursing profession Anne holds a strong conviction that for a more comprehensive understanding of mental health issues, the body, psychology and emotional domains cannot be separated.

In 2010 Anne trained in Affect Regulation Therapy and has since actively used this modality with a wide range of clients, as an effective tool to move clients towards greater mental, emotional and physical health. She continues to use A.R.T. daily in her practice and has done further training in this field.