COUNSELLING PSYCHOTHERAPIST & PSYCHOTHERAPY MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA

Hi, my name is Alison Ball.
I am a Psychotherapist originally trained in Melbourne Australia in the mid-80's. I have a continuing commitment to life-long learning so before and since that time I have participated in numerous personal and professional development courses, workshops, seminars, conferences and lecture series as well as my own therapy and supervision. I have also taken an active and prominent role in the formation and growth of my major professional association, the Australian Association of Somatic Psychotherapists (AASP). I have served there as President and in other capacities more than once. I also do the additional work it takes to maintain myself as an accredited member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and on the PACFA Register of individual practitioners.

I have worked in private practice in Melbourne Australia since 1986. I currently work in Kew about six kilometres from the centre of the city of Melbourne. There I mostly work with individual adults in medium to long term psychotherapy as well as some short term counselling clients. Click on "My Work" for further details and click here if you wish to make a booking enquiry now. Please note that if I cannot see you myself, I have a number of excellent colleagues who have been trained similarly to myself, to whom I can refer you.

In 1998 I completed a Masters in Psychoanalytic Studies at Monash University's Department of Psychological Medicine. The thesis was published as a book, the second edition of which is called "Taboo or Not Taboo: Reflections on Physical Touch in Psychoanalysis and Somatic Psychotherapy.

Prior to becoming a psychotherapist I was a primary school teacher, a parent and later a social worker. All these roles formed a crucial base for my work as a psychotherapist. Along with all my life-long learning, they gave me valuable insights into the human condition and what is needed from a counsellor or therapist. I have counselled many hundreds of people over the years and many have made quite remarkable changes in their lives. If you choose to work with me in therapy or counselling I do not promise that it will be easy. I do not believe in quick fixes and do not have a magic wand. Therapy is hard work. I also do not personally prescribe drugs though sometimes prescription drugs are a necessary adjunct to help people deal with their anxiety or their depression while we work together on the underlying issues. I do do a lot of listening which allows a great deal of freedom for the person with me to find their own answers within themselves and enables them to become more in touch with what it is that holds them back from living their life to the full.

When you come to see me your confidentiality is ensured. An important part of my ethical code and that of the AASP is that I will not work with anyone who is a relative or close friend of my own or of one of my existing clients. What I can do when someone close to myself or one of my clients seeks help from me, is to refer them to one of my colleagues who, I know, is equally competent to work with them.

As well as being President of the AASP for several years, I was also their treasurer at one time and served on their Ethics committee. For a lot of years I was as well, a member of the Ethics Committee of the National Association for Loss and Grief and have served on the committee of the Monash-Parkville Psychoanalytic Forum.

The Australian Association of Somatic Psychotherapists was formed in 1986 by graduates and teachers from the somatic psychotherapy trainings in Sydney and Melbourne Australia. To learn more about the AASP click on somaticpsych.org.au for their web-site.The Somatic Psychotherapy community in Melbourne and in Australia in general is quite small. However, interest has grown considerably in somatic psychotherapy with the recent upsurge in knowledge of body/mind-brain/emotional and early attachment connections. Interest has also burgeoned with the need in Australia, to find therapists who can work with people suffering post traumatic stress disorder and other effects of trauma. This is a particular niche for Somatic Psychotherapists because early trauma often manifests itself in the form of bodily symptoms rather than through words.

At present training in Somatic Psychotherapy in Melbourne Australia, is available through Jeff Barlow's College of Contemporary Somatic Psychotherapy (AACSP). To learn more about his training click on somaticpsychotherapy.com.au.

Though the terms"Somatic Psychotherapy" and Somatic Psychotherapist" are now used quite widely, they were coined by us here in Sydney and Melbourne Australia in 1986/7 when our Association was first formed. Soma is a Greek word meaning body/mind and Somatic Psychotherapists in Australia are more than "body-workers" and more than "body-psychotherapists". In Australia in particular, Somatic Psychotherapists are dedicated to an integration of somatic and psychodynamic principles. Somatic Psychotherapy allows for the use of touch and direct work with the body as and when appropriate and agreed by the client. Members of the AASP are bound by a strong Code of Ethical Practice the text of which you can find on the AASP web-site cited above.

Click on "History" to learn more about my training and my links with the AASP. You can also learn more about my work and training as well as links to the AASP in the Appendix to my book (Click on "The Book") and in a paper I wrote that was published in the February 2002 edition of the journal "Psychotherapy in Australia". Click on "Papers" for the full text of this paper and others that I have written.

PACFA is the Psychotherapists and Counsellors Federation of Australia formed as an unbrella body of Counselling and Psychotherapy Associations in Australia. PACFA aims to give counsellors and psychotherapists in Australia the ability to speak with one voice and to establish counselling and psychotherapy as professions in their own right separate from psychology and psychiatry. The AASP was a founding member of PACFA. To learn more about PACFA click on pacfa.org.au.

As said above, my Masters thesis that was titled "Physical Touch: Theoretical and Practice Issues in the Psychoanalytic Literature" was published as a book by Psychoz Publications who also publish the Journal "Psychotherapy in Australia". The second edition, "Taboo or Not Taboo: Reflections on Physical Touch in Psychoanalysis and Somatic Psychotherapy." can be purchased from Psychoz. Click here to find out more on the "The Book". My book currently costs A$25-00 and is available from Psychoz Publications at http://www.psychotherapy.com.au/community/?shop_search.asp?a=alison+ball or by writing to P.O. Box 124 Kew, Victoria 3101 or by telephoning them on (Australia) (03) 9855 2220 or Fax (03) 9855 2225.

My early training was in Social Work. I trained at Monash University, in Melbourne's south east, in the late 1970's. You can read about my jobs as a social worker in the public sphere under "History". My training and experience as a social worker is still integral to my work. My first love as a social worker was counselling one to one or as a therapist to couples, families and children. I worked first of all in a counselling agency in Sandringham in the south of Melbourne Australia. Later I worked in the field of chronic, terminal illness and then with families who had premature babies. I have, therefore had much experience as a therapist and counsellor in the field of loss and grief. I am a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and you can find out more about that association by clicking on their web-site at http://www.aasw.asn.au/. As a social worker, I wrote a number of papers which have been published in various forums. You can download the full text of these under "Papers"

Please click here if you wish to make a booking enquiry.