Counselling and Therapy
At MCPC we work with infants, children, adolescents, and their families across a wide range of issues.
Infants (0-3)
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We help infants and their parents with a range of issues including:
- Sleeping and settling
- Feeding issues
- Toileting issues
- Anxiety
- Responding to anger outbursts (i.e., regulation of frustration & anger).
- Adjustment to parenting
- Supporting parents with early attachment and bonding
- Providing parents with education regarding infant mental health and development
- Supporting parents with their own health and wellbeing in the context of early parenting (e.g., reducing parental stress, anxiety and depression)
Children and adolescents
- We help children and adolescents with a range of issues including:
- Fears and worries (e.g., phobias, social anxiety, separation anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder)
- Child and adolescent depression
- Suicidal thoughts and self-harm behaviours
- Behavioural problems (e.g., hyperactivity and attention difficulties, tantrums, oppositional behaviours)
- Sleep difficulties and bed wetting
- Anger and aggressive behaviours
- Interpersonal and communication skills (e.g., social skills, assertive skills)
- Bullying
- School refusal
- Autism spectrum disorder
- Childhood obesity
- Eating disorders
- Adjustment issues (e.g., coping with major life events such as separation and divorce, adjusting to parent re-partnering and step-families, or coping with a chronic or terminal illness)
- Allergies and anaphylaxis
- Supporting young people with issues relating to pregnancy
- Grief & loss issues
- The Impact of child abuse (e.g., sexual and physical abuse & neglect)
- Childhood trauma (e.g., complex childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder)
Parents and Families
- We help children and adolescents with a range of issues including:
- Parenting challenges & concerns
- Parent-child relationship issues
- Sibling issues
- Family change, adjustment, loss or trauma
- Issues unique to Same Sex Parented Families
- Issues unique to Foster Care, Permanent Care & Adoption Families
- Issues unique to child and/or family court proceedings
Individual Counselling for Parents/Adults
Working with children and young people requires expertise in working with the adults involved in the child’s life. Sometimes the presenting issues can create stress or anxiety in the parent or can significantly impact upon family relationships.
At times, parents may seek their own therapeutic counselling or support to address issues of concern. Sometimes this may include exploring childhood issues or trauma that may be impacting upon a parent’s current capacity to parent effectively. Sometimes parents simply want a reflective space of their own.
At MCPC, we have specific clinical psychologists who have expertise and experience in working with adults around a range of issues such as depression, anxiety, marital issues, parenting issues, parent child attachment issues, and trauma and grief.
Group Therapy and Workshops
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Courageous Kids Group
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Based on Ron Rapee’s “Helping your Anxious Child”, Courageous Kids is a Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Group for lower and upper primary school aged children. The program runs over 10 sessions and each session runs for an hour. Parents and children will be required to attend each of these groups. Sessions 1 and 8 are for parents only.
Anxiety is one of the most common childhood difficulties. All children and young people experience anxiety at some time or another, but sometimes anxiety can become a problem; it can cause high levels of distress an/or interfere with a child’s daily activities (e.g., performing at school, making and playing with friends).
The Courageous Kids program aims to help anxious children:
- Recognise and understand emotions such as fear, stress and anxiety;
- Learn effective strategies to challenge their worries and reduce their anxiety; and
- Utilize step ladders to gradually engage with feared situations.
Stress Less Group
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The Stress Less group is specifically run to help VCE students with managing stress and anxiety. The program runs for 10 weeks and is for students in year 11 and year 12.
The Stress Less Group aims to help VCE students to:
- Recognise the early signs of stress, anxiety and irritability
- Identify and challenge unhelpful thoughts and thinking patterns
- Recognise unhelpful coping strategies
- Develop adaptive coping strategies
- Develop a range of relaxation and meditation techniques (including mindfulness meditation)
- Develop good self care and social support networks
Emotional Regulation Group
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The Emotional regulation group is a psycho-education group aimed at assisting individuals to develop self-acceptance and mindfulness skills. These emotional regulation skills assist young people to take charge of emotions, rather than to feel overwhelmed by them. This group is currently run for two age groups; adolescents (13-16 yrs) and young adults (17-21 yrs) over 10 weeks.
This program helps young people to:
- Better understand their emotions
- Learn effective strategies to challenge their worries and reduce their anxiety; and
- Increase their tolerance of distress and negative feelings
- Develop helpful coping strategies
- Introduce Mindfulness CBT
- Apply mindfulness to daily situations
Welcoming a Child into the Family Group
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This group is for families who are at any step along the process of welcoming a child into their family through Inter-Country Adoption. The group focuses on:
- What to expect;
- Integrating trauma and attachment theory into everyday practice;
- Introducing a therapeutic parenting model; and
- Developing good self-care.
- Single Session therapy
- Play Therapy
- Family Therapy
- Group Therapy
- Schema Therapy
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Mindfulness Therapy (Mindfulness-based CBT)
- Sensorimotor Psychotherapy
- Interpersonal Therapy
- Transactional Analysis Therapy
- Trauma-Focused CBT
- Parenting Education and Support
- Behavioural and Attachment focused Parent Work
- Parent-Child Attachment Therapy (e.g., Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy)
All Psychologists at MCPC have experience and expertise in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). In addition, members of our team have a variety of skills and training across a number of modalities including:
