NDIS Funded Counselling
Counselling under the NDIS must historically be justified under the NDIS Plan as following on trying and using, or not being able to access, mainstream Medicare funded counselling psychology sessions. People access this help via the GP who writes up a Mental Health Plan and refers people to a psychologist.
We are not psychologists. We are Counsellors and Psychotherapists. Because of the negative and shortsighted politics of the Australian system, our clients and participants cannot access Medicare rebates for counselling.
People who use the Counselling line item to access our service tend to have Plan Managed or Self Managed NDIS Plans. This gives more flexibility in how they choose to use their CB Daily Activity or Therapy budget.
Usually people need to have their NDIS Plan Goals clearly state that they need and will use Counselling services to help them with their social and emotional capacity building and daily living skills.
The NDIS Goals are very important to get right, and often Coordinators of Support and Planners have not actually done a good job to articulate these goals in a way that attracts sufficient funding for Counselling related therapies.
We offer the following Counselling related therapies, which are all potentially funded under this Counselling line item.
Some may also be funded within the Assessment or Behaviour Support or Early Childhood budgets, where they are applicable to those service goals requested by the participant.
Here is a list of some therapies we’ve offered over the past few years,
- Talk therapy, usually including Cognitive Behavoural Therapy (CBT) methods
- Rogerian Person Centred Therapy – Which is a method that runs through all of our work
- Clay Art Therapy
- Gaming Therapy
- Animal Assisted Therapy – With our three Maltese Shih Tzu pups
- Anxiety and Stress Related Therapy
- Narrative Therapy – An approach that shares stories and insights to achieve positive outcomes
- Parenting Coaching & Skill Building Therapy – This is often included in behaviour support therapy
- Relationship Therapy & Skill Building – This is also found in Behaviour Therapy
- Grief and Loss Therapy
- Major Life Transitions Therapy
- Therapy for Identity and Personal Development and/or Spirituality
- Sexuality Identity and/or Gender Identity Therapy
- We also use and share aspects of social media, music, and movies in the midst of therapy with some clients where this provides helpful therapeutic outcomes
- And of course, counselling also include clinical assessments and observations of mental health status and disability status, and writing up complex reports when necessary
We work online Telehealth. We provide Counselling Therapies too people across Australia.
While the image below is in person, our clients say that they feel closely connected to us as their therapist. Once we get going, the tech fades in the background. People tend to focus on whatever the issues are in the moment.
Experience of Change and Growth
Therapy can help to co-create change and growth. Besides many outcome studies that show efficacy, we see in therapy practice the results of people’s life changes.
No promises of course. Below are a range of possibilities documented in the literature and observed in our clinical practice.
- Adjustment and learning to cope with social conflicts,
- Taking on a positive view of disability and identity,
- Reframing Autism as a positive and life-giving reality,
- Working on relationship issues and resolving problems,
- Learning how to manage disability workers in daily life,
- Coming to terms with my disability, and mapping ways forward to manage,
- Learning about the ins and outs of Autism support,
- Phobias released and resolved,
- Chronic fears overcome and managed,
- Pain management to reduce pain learned in mindfulness and hypnotherapy skills,
- Mind-body healing and increased personal awareness,
- Healing from trauma and past hurts,
- Depression managed and able to move forward,
- Anxiety reduced and managed in ways that open new perspectives,
- Dynamic goal setting and life-direction opening up,
- Increased capacity to cope in relationships and deal with life stress
- Low self esteem transformed into sense of empowerment and confidence,
- Confusion and doubt worked through toward clarity and well-formed beliefs,
- Misdirection and mistakes reviewed and new paths in life opened up,
- Chronic illness management and increased capacity to self-care,
- Mental health issues discussed and managed in cooperation with carers,
- Behaviours of concern assessed and practical planning agreed on ways forward,
- Senior later life issues discussed and unresolved issues, hurts, and regrets released,
- Chronic workaholic patterns explored and more balanced and healthful lifestyle realised
- Issues prior discussed with many therapists now resolved because perhaps the time is right and your therapist really gets what is happening for you,
- Religious or cultural or familial associated issues, hurts, trauma, violence, or abuse, brought into therapy with leading to a sense of personal relief,
- A reduction of the pain of regret, grief, loss, and traumatic stress
Counselling Psychotherapy can either be brief solution focused, or can be longer term over months or years.
We are always working ourselves out of a job because our primary goal is to help you to gain capacity to grow, change, and resolve your issues now and in future.
We want our clients not to need a therapist.
This means that we aim where possible to teach and provide methods for personal growth, problem solving, mindfulness, and a greater personal capacity to manage life’s challenges.
