Welcome to our website and service. Our text to speech application button above is basic and provides an audio reading. For the differently abled we recommend you use your own application. There is no pause function. If you stop, you have to start again from the beginning.
We are Dr Joseph and Dr Dwayne. See our images below and click on them to visit our pages to learn more about us.
We provide Telehealth online direct to your home NDIS funded services in specialist behaviour support and counselling psychotherapy.
Yes we are fully NDIS Registered and Certified.
We use the behaviour support and counselling funding line items, plus assessment where we provide NDIS plan reviews, clinical reports, functional capacity assessments, clinical assessments for autism and other disabilities.
YouTube video below introduction to our service.
We often work with highly complex cases that combine multiple disabilities with mental health and medically determined conditions.
We are also registered in early childhood intervention where we help parents with younger ones from our many years of experience as specialist therapists, educators, and coaches.
We help with family and staff capacity and training and we have created tailored online modules to assist specific cases where funding permits. Our work includes behaviour support planning with animal assisted therapies in autism support.
This year we have also gained experience in gaming therapy and autism support. Innovative gaming therapy provides a medium and environment where a person with autism and social and/or sensory sensitivities can engage more freely and build rapport with the therapist over time.
This positive person centred experience can provide a bridge to build skills and capacities that can be translated to other areas of daily life and relationships.
Oz Clay Cottage is a project of Ability Therapy that brings together telehealth with clay art therapy.
This innovative approach supports NDIS participants who cannot access or attend a local therapy group or centre. They work with us from the comfort of their own home.
YouTube video below showing potter at the wheel with natural calming sounds.
During 2023, our studio is being renovated and things are taking longer than hoped. For this reason we are taking baby steps toward letting people know about this new project. If you or someone you know is interested, send us an email and we will begin a waiting list. When the service is launched, we will notify the list and change/update this area of this homepage.
Below is a Youtube video for sensory enjoyment ‘ASMR’ good-feeling, that we created for our clients with Autism and Special Needs. This video features our therapy pups.
For more videos visit our YouTube Channel ‘Ability Awakens.’
Meet Drs Bowers and Kennedy
Therapy
Online Telehealth Specialist
Counselling Psychotherapy
Behaviour Support
Clinical Assessments
Learning
Building Your Capacity
Engaging New Learning
Gaining Skills
Accomplishing Goals
My Strategy
- Goals
- Strengths
- Growth in Skills
- Person Centred Plan
- Building capacity
- Practical Everyday Life
- Personal Development
My Growth
- Therapy as Change
- Therapy as Healing
- Therapy as Learning
- New Awareness is New Skills
- Relationships
- Family and Work
- Psychotherapy
Contact Us
We consult online telehealth across Australia.
We are a small and beautiful service.
We provide you with direct access to two highly qualified senior therapists.
Contact Us
We consult Tues-Thurs 10-4
We intentionally keep no admin staff on phones for higher quality contact with our clients.
If we can answer you get Dr Bowers or Dr Kennedy directly.
But please leave a message.
Ability Awakens Blog
Provocative Insights in the Arts of Therapy, Behaviour, and Spirituality as Meaning Making
During 2023, Dr Joseph R Bowers and Dr Dwayne A Kennedy are in production of a new Podcast to add another accessible option to share insights and stories. We rebranded our article posts ‘Ability Awakens’ to reflect this new direction. For accessibility, we are excited to announce the new podcast has audio with a full text transcript on each episode’s page. Our YouTube Channel is also rebranded Ability Awakens.
Donation
Dr Bowers and Dr Kennedy work in a voluntary basis and tirelessly to support clients and public community education and capacity building projects including a regular Blog, YouTube Channel, book and materials publishing, and a Podcast production. To support our community educational efforts consider shouting us a coffee and offering a donation (not tax deductible). Thank you so much.
A$20.00
To subscribe to our blog and podcast posts, add your email below.
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E7 Animal Assisted Therapy
Welcome to our seventh episode in season one. We’ve mapped the season to ten episodes released fortnightly. We hope you enjoy this new audio adventure. Below see the full transcript of this episode. To listen to the episode click on the audio file below. Also available on, Spotify and Apple. To subscribe to our blog and podcast and…
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E6 Q&A Clay Art Therapy and Spirituality
A Q & A with author Dr Joseph R Bowers on his new book Clay Art Therapy and Spirituality
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E5 Earthing Grounding Being
Integral behaviour support is a person centred and holistic method at the levels of clinical assessment and daily implementation. Here is Part 2 of the Production.
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E4 Integral Behaviour Support Part 2
Integral behaviour support is a person centred and holistic method at the levels of clinical assessment and daily implementation. Here is Part 2 of the Production.
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E3 Integral Behaviour Support Part 1
Integral behaviour support is a person centred and holistic method at the levels of clinical assessment and daily implementation. Getting things right is important to making a difference.
Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E2 Empathy’s Profound Mystery
Empathy: Capacity to see and feel beyond surfaces. To awaken life’s most profound mysteries. Join Drs Bowers & Kennedy exploring a world needing a dose of empathy.
Autism Ethics: Mandatory Reading for Parents
Autism can be a controversial area for many reasons. Societal attitudes and beliefs around Autism are still extremely fractured. All in one day, we can encounter people who believe that Autism is a pathology, a scary and/or negative diagnosis, a behavioural problem, and a serious developmental problem to be fixed or that cannot be fixed.…
Ability Awakens Podcast: S1 E1: Belief in Everything
Welcome to our new podcast series for 2023. A full transcript of the show appears below. We have yet to distribute the show to other platforms, so its debut is right here for our dedicated visitors. Listen to the Podcast below. Also available on, Spotify and Apple. Ability Awakens Podcast S1 E1 Belief in Everything Transcript: Ability…
ABC National Radio Show, Soul Search
Dr Joseph Randolph Bowers was interviewed this week by Dr Meredith Lake of Soul Search, an eclectic and innovative show on ABC Radio National that airs on Sundays. To listen to the episode go to this link. Solitude and the Ache for Humans – ABC Radio National. Dr Meredith mistakenly cited an out of print…
Clay Art Therapy and Spirituality
We are overjoyed to share our new book. It is currently available on LULU, just click the link or the image below. You can read the book description below with the image. A personal word on the project. During Covid-19, we engaged a postdoctoral study on clay art therapy and how people make their sense…
NDIS Specialist Behaviour, Spirituality, and Mental Health Assessments
How do we describe and assess functional behavioural capacity, mental health, and spirituality?
No Waiting List for Specialist Behaviour Support via Telehealth
Our current capacity is open to new referrals. This situation can change quickly, and first come first serve. We are two PhD qualified Counselling Psychotherapists who are Registered and Certified Behaviour Specialists with the NDIS Commission. Our practice is via Telehealth direct from your hands and your home to our office in the mountains of…
Specialist Behaviour Support Reviews Can Increase NDIS Funding
Behaviour Support Specialist reviews can effectively address funding issues and in many cases increase funded allocations across a wide range of areas.
Autism Therapy Puppies
Animal Assisted Therapy is now a quite well documented approach in the therapy literature. Animals that engage in therapy include a wide range of creatures from horses to cows to sheep to dogs and cats, fish, dolphins, elephants, and birds. As NDIS therapists we work with dogs, and in our case the dogs we work…
Grief Loss Disability and Behaviour Support: Our Commemoration of Queen Elizabeth II
It is with great personal sadness that we acknowledge publicly the passing of our collective archetypal grandmother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. As we reflect on her passing, and we are among those many who have never met her personally, we are at this time deeply aware of how much her death raises grief and…
Cholesterol, Disability, NDIS Behaviour Support and Counselling Clinical Reviews
While the NDIS does not pay for mainstream health and medical reviews, from our holistic perspective as senior specialists in behaviour support and counselling therapies, we take the larger-view on how health issues overlap and create, make worse, or improve disability related issues. In the disability realm, when you are living with chronic life-long conditions…
Long Covid Lifestyle Health Reviews and NDIS
In our role as specialists in assessments, behaviour support, and counselling therapies, we have had clients come forward with “Long Covid” (LC) symptoms that has inspired us to develop a clinical review to help people with the range of symptoms and issues that LC sustains. Research and clinical practice shows that about twenty common symptoms…
Autism and Telehealth Behaviour Support and Counselling
Impressive Positive Outcomes with Telehealth Recent studies are showing that Autism and Telehealth make useful partners. Chen et al (2022) systematically reviewed 112 studies from databases of PubMed, Web of Science and Cochrane Library, that were published in English between the dates of January 2010 to April 1st, 2022. Their study incorporates the largest body…
Australia’s Not-So Hidden Health Crisis
The Australian Counselling Association released a recent report outlining the mental and allied health crisis. The report is short, clear, direct, and worth reading. Every Australian deserves access to mental health care – but sadly, that’s not the reality for everyone. It’s a simple fact that Australians who live in rural and remote areas have…
Endocannabinoid System, Autism, and Disabilities
Radically important information for people with disabilities and mental health issues, with huge implications for holistic health and wellness. What is the Endocannabinoid (EC) System? And what implications does its discovery and utility have for people with many different types of disabilities in Australia? Is this system potentially important in one way or other to…
Medicinal Cannabis, NDIS, Funded Therapy Assessments, Human Rights, Election 2022
As a centre-left individual, and a senior clinician, I am passionate about access and equity in social, health and educational areas. These are core human rights issues. With Australia facing a federal election next month, the moment makes me realise how much both medicalised and legalised cannabis access are in fact human rights issues. The…
Australian Election: Puppy Therapy, Disability Politics, and the Greens
Last year we were very blessed to meet a new furry friend who made last year’s winter eventual. Getting out into the cold of Armidale winter was exhilarating and reconnected us to good old mother nature. It was a fun distraction from pandemic circumstances and otherwise stressful times. Over the months, even as a puppy,…
Climate Anxiety, Behaviour Support, and NDIS
A recent article in the Guardian articulated a phenomenon that I’ve long been aware impacts people’s lives, and that often comes into therapy. Climate anxiety, existential threat to lifestyle, and climate crisis first came to my awareness during a session in Canada. We were consulting from a regional office when a client raised his intense…
War, Art Therapy, Mindfulness, and Healing
This week as the atrocities in Europe mount with overwhelming evidence of crimes against humanity, the tragic circumstances, including the entrenched attitudes of certain European countries who continue to block necessary oil and gas sanctions, simply makes people around the world feel powerless. For people around the world, and here in Australia, we call the…
A Sector in Crisis: Illegal and Unauthorised Restrictive Practices and Neglect
The recent decision of the South Australian Court regarding the case of NDIS participant Ann Marie Smith is reported by ABC News dated 18 March 2022. The ABC says that, “An Adelaide disability support worker has been jailed for more than six years for committing one of the most serious examples of manslaughter by criminal neglect…
Autism, War, and Behaviour Support
The #Ukraine war is devastating. In so many ways. The impact on women and children is completely shocking, disturbing, and traumatic for them and for everyone with a heart and mind. Many commentators have said how this particular war is more televised, and more photographed, than any war in history. The war enters into our…
Lifestyle Medicine and NDIS Funded Therapy and Behaviour Support
Dr Bowers and Dr Kennedy are members of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine. Continuing to lead the professions of Counselling and applied Lifestyle and Integral Behaviour Support, Dr Bowers is on the path to becoming a Fellow of the Society. According to their site, “The ASLM Fellowship is conceptually based on a Masters degree…
The Path to Peace
My nephew asked me this morning, “Uncle have you been raising the sacred peace-pipe lately?” My reply was, “Nephew when we walk the Good Red Road of peace, we become the sacred medicine pipe.” Peace is a Way of Being Peace is not only an external force in nature and relationships. Peace is an internal…
Transgender, Sexuality, Identity, and NDIS
Over many years we have worked as specialist educators, therapists, and researchers in the areas of culture, identity, sexuality, gender, and spirituality-as-meaning-making. My first major research project was conducted back in the 1990s during a Masters of Education Counselling degree, and focused on bisexual and gay men’s experiences of religion. The project reveals the complex…
We Stand With Ukraine
The cost of human suffering in war is simply beyond beyond. We are long time advocates for human rights. We have upheld and practiced for 30+ years in person centred supports and allied health therapies. Our research and tireless efforts have sought to uphold human dignity in health care, counselling, and disability services. We have…
Services Update and Covid-19: March 2022
Health and Safety with Behaviour Support and Counselling Australians have an odd, confused, and mixed attitude to health precautions. We see this mostly because the message from government remains clouded; and without speaking with one voice the messaging will never be clear. Our service however is very clear in our approach. At this turn where…
Trimming the Bits – Pottery Meditation
A meditation on life’s changes and human development with Dr Joseph R Bowers. I am a counsellor psychotherapist to learn more visit our website http://www.abilitytherapyspecialists.com.au In future we will create and launch a new site as well at http://www.reddurt.com.au however we need some time to work out the details. The vision is to offer pottery…
Centering in Life – Pottery Meditations
This brief meditation provides the beauty and challenge of clay centering on the potter’s wheel and how this symbolises and represents centering of the person, heart and mind. Dr Joseph R Bowers provides the narrative voiceover.
Behaviour Support, Therapy, NDIS, Disability, Covid-19, Vaccination and Future Planning
Given all focus right now on Covid-19 lock downs in New South Wales, we offer this update on our services for NDIS participants and others seeking private therapy and counselling support. While we are a small team of two senior and doctoral qualified specialists our clients come to us from regional NSW and from other…
Homophobia and Healing: Psychotherapy and the Psychology of Prejudice
New book by Dr Joseph Randolph Bowers We are pleased this title has finally seen the light of day, as it has been delayed during Covid-19, and was in the works for many years. Below is the abstract book information. Click on the image to go to the sales page. With over thirty years of…
Clay, Art Therapy, NDIS, and Covid Isolation
Clay and culture go hand in hand, literally and in every other way. Clay sculptures date back over 10,000 years. In relative terms, even the Bible is young when it comes to the subterranean origins of the name Adam, meaning of the earth or made of clay. Clay works both express and facilitate culture and…
Animal Assisted Canine Therapy in Behaviour Support and Counselling in Australia: NDIS Funded Dog Assisted Reviews in Autism and Intellectual Disability
This post attaches a recent paper written to evaluate Animal Assisted Therapy (AAT), particularly with trained therapy dogs in cases of Autism, Intellectual Disability, and in early, middle, and late childhood intervention contexts.
I Can’t… but you can…
I can’t, she said. Her Elder touches her face and says, the root word there, my dear, is ‘can’ followed by the contrary ‘not’… Can comes first. And you can always untie the knot with a little help from a friend.
Person Centred Values in Positive Behaviour Support
Welcome to another video release from Ability Therapy Specialists. Please like and share, and subscribe to the channel. This week, and for Easter, we share our passion for person centred practice as a form of values and culture. This very deep philosophy is part of and integral to positive behaviour support. People with Autism really…
Positive Behaviour Support and Counselling
Positive Behaviour Support and Counselling are our passion and we are very excited to offer this video introduction. We work under the NDIS in Australia.
Aged Care and Behaviour Support for NDIS Participants
The NDIS Commission has announced new arrangements for NDIS Participants living within aged care that have enormous implications for individuals but also the aged care systems and cultures in Australia. As specialists in behaviour support but more so as advocates for human rights and person centered positive and strength based practices, we welcome these changes…