For Online or Face-to-face
Individual, Couple, or Family Counselling, Treatment of Diagnosed Depression/Anxiety, Trauma and
other Conditions,
and/or Prayer/Spiritual Support with
Owen Robinson
MAASW (Adv. Accr)
BSW (Curtin) MA (Counselling)
BEd (Science) Grad. Dip. Management
Counsellor
Accredited Mental Heath Social Worker/Medicare Provider
Supervisor and Training Consultant
Open Arms (formerly Veterans & Veterans Families Counselling Service) Outreach Programme Counsellor
Department of Veterans Affairs Provider
Insurance Commission of WA Provider
Able to see members of Bupa, HCF and Teachers Health (plus UniHealth and Nurses and Midwives Health)
who have the appropriate level of cover
Listed as a Blue Knot Foundation Trauma-informed Service
For info Phone: 0408 890 887
(please allow one day for replies to messages)
NB Medicare rebates are available if you see a GP for a mental healthcare plan
Online options available
Signal (preferred secure phone app), Skype or Zoom options are available for online sessions.
Canning Vale Serviced Offices
Unit 15, 64 Bannister Road,
Canning Vale
Western Australia 6155
(NB the entrance is on the Canvale Road side of the complex)
Medicare Provider 442250DX
Mondays/Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Fridays 7.30am-5:00pm (online or face to face)
Thursdays
7.30-11.30am (online only)
11.30am-5.00pm (face to face)
For Appointments Phone/SMS 0408 890 887
To mail: PO Box 260
Maddington
WA 6989
To email: morehope@iinet.net.au
This is NOT an emergency service. For Western Australian mental health emergencies please contact the Mental Health Emergency Response Line on 1300 555 788
or
attend the nearest Emergency Department of a hospital.
Alternatively contact Lifeline on
13 11 14.
Helplines: (click here)
Other support services:
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800 - for 24/7 telephone counselling for young people 5-25 years
Suicide Callback Service: 1300 659 467 - for 24/7 telephone crisis support for people at-risk of suicide, carers and bereaved
MensLine Australia: 1300 78 99 78 - for 24/7 telephone and online support, information and referral services for men
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 - for 24/7 telephone support and online chat 4pm - 10pm (AEST)
Meth Helpline : 1800 874 878 - The Meth Helpline is a free confidential telephone counselling, information and referral service for anyone concerned about their own or another person's meth use.
1800RESPECT - 1800 737 732 - 24 hour 7 days a week, confidential telephone and online support - 1800RESPECT is not only a support service for people affected by sexual assault, domestic and family violence. It is also an information and support service for family, friends, and frontline workers.
WA COVID-19 Hotline - Phone 13 COVID
Lifeline - Phone 13 11 14
MensLine - Phone 1300 789 978
Jobseekers Contact Line - Phone 132 850
Small business advice – Phone 133 140
Acknowledgement of sources of graphics used on this web site:
Permission given on 27 Nov 2016 by Danny Silk for #KYLO (Keep Your Love On) and lovingonpurpose.com;
Permission given on 27 Nov 2016 by Kris Vallotton for #KVM (Kris Vallotton Ministries).
EverWeb public domain images
Brett Jones Online Free Stock Photos: http://brentjonesonline.com/blog/blogging/where-to-find-free-stock-photos/
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Counsellor is sometimes misspelled as counselor, councelor, councellor or councillor and Counselling is sometimes spelled as counselin.,
Suburbs serviced include Shelley, Rossmoyne, Willetton, Parkwood, Ferndale, Bull Creek, Lynwood, Wilson, Cannington, Canning Vale, Leeming, Salter Point, Waterford, Karawara, Brentwood, Murdoch, Welshpool, Huntingdale, Victoria Park, Gosnells, Martin, Jandakot, Bibra Lake, Cockburn Central, South Perth, Melville, Samson, North Lake, Myaree, Alfred Cove, Rivervale, Burswood,Orange Grove, Belmont, Ascot, South Guildford, Guildford, Hazelmere, Woodbridge, Midvale, Swan View, Greenmount, Helena Valley, Maida Vale, Gooseberry Hill, Kalamunda, Lesmurdie, Walliston, Carmel, Bickley, Forrestfield, O'Connor, Piara Waters, Forrestdale, Treeby, Banjup, Seville Grove, Armadale, Camillo, Kelmscott, Mt Nasura, Mount Richon, Brookdale, Wuyong, Hilbert, Darling Downs, Wandi, Aubin Grove, Atwell, Success, Hamond Park, Oakford, Byford,Individual counselling anger management counselling marriage counselling couple counselling child counselling parenting counselling sexual abuse counselling, self-harma nd suicide counselling trauma counselling relationship counselling stress management Self esteem and personal development adolescent counselling
More Hope More Calm Get on Better
ABN 80 483 081 209
The Importance of Forgiveness
Adapted from work by Fred Luskin, Director of Stanford University Forgivenss Project
The essence of forgiveness is being resilient when things don’t go the way you want—to be at peace with “no,” be at peace with what is, be at peace with the vulnerability inherent in human life.
Then you have to move forward and live your life without prejudice.
It’s the absence of prejudice that informs forgiveness. You realize that nobody owes you, that you don’t have to take the hurt you suffered and pay it forward to someone else. Just because your last partner was unkind to you doesn’t mean you always have to give your new partner the third degree. With an open heart, you move forward and accept what is, without prejudice.
You don’t just accept it because life sucks and there’s nothing you can do about it—though that may be true—but you accept it in a way that leaves you willing to give the next moment a chance.
But before you can forgive, you have to grieve. At the most basic level, forgiveness is on a continuum with grief.
The way I understand it now is that when you’re offended or hurt or violated, the natural response is to grieve. All of those problems can be seen as a loss—whether we lose affection or a human being or a dream—and when we lose something, human beings have a natural reintegration process, which we call grief. Then forgiveness is the resolution of grief.
But the challenges we have with grief are twofold: Some people never grieve, and some people grieve for too long.
A deep human being feels pain and allows oneself to suffer because that’s part of the human experience. Without acknowledging that you’ve been wounded and you’ve lost something, you don’t gain the benefit of the experience—of acknowledging that you’ve been hurt and mistreated, but also of healing. And so there is a power that comes from the experience.
But a deep human being also lets go of their suffering—he or she doesn’t maintain it forever, doesn’t create his or her personality around it, doesn’t use it as a weapon.
In my experience, I’ve identified three steps of grief that are essential before someone can start to forgive.
The first step is to fully acknowledge the harm done, whether by you or somebody else, and to own the fact that you’ve lost something—that you didn’t get something you wanted, and it hurts. In a therapeutic context, that could be painful work. Sometimes its take therapeutic work before somebody’s ready to forgive because they’ve suppressed a bad experience or been in denial about it, and it may take effort to get them to acknowledge the harm or its consequences.
The second step of the grief process is to experience the feelings normally associated with the negative experience. It’s not enough just to have someone say, “Hey, I was beaten for 12 years and I want to get over it” if they’ve never been miserable about their suffering. They’re going to have to be miserable before they let it go. I’ve never met anyone who suffered real loss and didn’t suffer at some level. You experience a range of emotions—you’re sad, you’re scared. But when you forgive, you understand that there are other options besides continued suffering. You’re not letting go of the event—that’s immutable. But you can transform the emotional response to it.
The third and final step is that what you’re grieving can’t be a secret. I try not to let people forgive stuff that they haven’t shared with others because there’s such good research on resilience showing that people who go through harmful experiences and don’t tell anybody have much worse consequences than people who do tell others. The human connection is central to healing.
That said, the people who tell everybody about their grievance have the second worst outcomes. The resilience research shows that what you need for a healthy response to difficulty is to share your problem with a few select, caring people over time. You don’t spill your guts to everybody, and you don’t spill your guts to nobody. For people who don’t have trusted confidants, I have suggested that they go to a therapist or enroll in a 12-step program—something to make sure they’re not holding any shame.
If you proceed through these steps, you can reach a point with your grief where you’re ready to forgive. But it takes time. Fred Luskin says "I once had a woman come into a workshop of mine, very early in my experience teaching forgiveness, and say, “I need to forgive the fact that somebody murdered my son.” I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t done work with families of murder victims yet, and so the only thing I could ask was, “When did it happen?” And she replied, “A month ago.” I said, “Go home. This is not what you need now. Come back in two years. Come back after you’ve done the unimaginably hard work of grieving that loss, then forgive it.”"
Steps of Forgiveness
Adapted from work by Fred Luskin, Director of Stanford University Forgivenss Project
1. Know exactly how you feel about what happened and be able to articulate what about the situation is not OK. Even if you need a dictionary and thesaurus to find the words categorise or name the emotion it helps to clarify and get our thinking mind back in charge of what the emtional mind has dominated (simly by naming the emotion.) Then, tell a couple of trusted people about your experience.
2. Make a commitment to yourself to feel better. Forgiveness is for you and no one else.
3. Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciling with the person who upset you or condoning the action. In forgiveness you seek the peace and understanding that come from blaming people less after they offend you and taking those offenses less personally.
4. Get the right perspective on what is happening. Recognize that your primary distress is coming from the hurt feelings, thoughts, and physical upset you are suffering now, not from what offended you or hurt you two minutes—or 10 years—ago.
5. At the moment you feel upset, practice stress management to soothe your body’s fight or flight response. (see other pages for self-regulating tools: Happiness research; Depression research)
6. Give up expecting things from your life or from other people that they do not choose to give you. Remind yourself that you can hope for health, love, friendship, and prosperity, and work hard to get them. However, these are “unenforceable rules:” You will suffer when you demand that these things occur, since you do not have the power to make them happen.
7. Put your energy into looking for another way to get your positive goals met than through the experience that has hurt you.
8. Remember that a life well lived is your best revenge. Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving power over you to the person who caused you pain, learn to look for the love, beauty, and kindness around you. Put more energy into appreciating what you have rather than attending to what you do not have.
9. Amend the way you look at your past so you remind yourself of your heroic choice to forgive.
