Atlas Counselling was created to provide a service that is different to the traditional expectations associated with ‘talk therapy’.
Counselling offered here is not only a ‘stuffed shirt’ sitting there, nodding and hmm-ing and ahh-ing while you dutifully ‘spill your guts’ to a perfect stranger – though, let’s face it, there is usually a bit of that, and it can be important, because your story matters!
More than that though, together we will consider your story through a variety of lenses; reorganise how you might consider your experiences; decipher and develop awareness around the meaning that you, uniquely, attribute to your experiences; as well as provide you with frameworks, tools, and strategies that can help you make values-driven decisions outside of the therapy space.
Atlas Counselling does not focus on the labels that may have been allocated to you or adopted by you along your way, which may describe (or attribute) a set of symptoms or presentations. Atlas Counselling does not seek to pathologise the human experience. The human condition is not considered a medical condition here!
While Atlas Counselling, of course, understands there are times that a medical diagnosis may be beneficial for a client, for a variety of reasons, it is important that you know that Atlas Counselling neither provides any kind of diagnosis, nor will we consider your experience from within the medical model of care. We proudly work alongside the medical model, not from within it. A mantra here is that ‘distress is not a disorder’ and we do not treat it as though it is.
Choosing Atlas Counselling means that you are choosing a journey of self-discovery with a goal of learning to understand your needs, wants and expectations and how to advocate for them in a purposeful and self-respectful way; learning to discover or create and uphold personal boundaries, and becoming an active participant rather than being a passive ‘input resource’ for the systems and relationships that you are a part of.
Like Atlas from Greek mythology, we often feel the burden of carrying the ‘weight of world’ on our shoulders. The sheer weight of our perception of responsibility can sometimes feel debilitating!
In a time of trying to be all things to all people; a constant vigilance in “being good” and “doing what’s right”, and when “being” is experienced as the same as “doing”, it can feel overwhelming. It can feel impossible to find the time and space to really examine the choices we make and why we make them – we are kept so busy and “full”. It is challenging to find the time and space to make proactive, self-determining decisions, rather than responding to circumstances using mechanisms that we may have inherited out of either necessity or through the process of enculturation.
Atlas Counselling IS that space! A friendly, judgement-free, safe place waiting to help you find and live your truth, authentically and unapologetically!
When you are ready, check availability and make your booking directly by clicking here.
Emergency Contact List
Kids Help Line: 1800 55 1800
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Domestic Violence Crisis Line: 1800 65 64 63
Australian Emergency Services: 000
(Police, Fire, Ambulance)
For other options, please visit https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/mental-health-helplines