John offers a path with a heart, to understand and help you understand the difficulties you are experiencing. He can help you instil ways of overcoming them – drawing on your own abilities and resources.
When we enter long term relationships, we do so with hope and optimism – with little thought of challenges that might arise. When confronted with these, many of us are able surmount them and our relationships bond into robust partnerships. Unfortunately when we encounter problems (whether because of unforeseen differences in beliefs or expectations, differences in child raising or in the face of pressures such as financial) these can stress or threaten our relationships – leading to a cycle of emotional distancing, communication difficulties, conflict, emotional estrangement, abuse or at worst violence.
In those instances where couples decide to separate, John respects this, and offers separation counselling to enable a parting with as much respect and as little hurt to each party and their children.
His experience includes:
- Co-founder of Master of Counselling at ANU
- Founder of First Professional Marriage Guidance Training Programme in the ACT
- Supervisor of relationship counsellors in the ACT
- Consultant to SA Marriage Guidance Council (now Relationships Australia)
- Family Therapy and Relationship Training at McMasterUniversity
- Founder of Master of Clinical Psychology at Adelaide University
- Member of founding committees of SA Family Therapy Association and ASSERT (now Sexology Australia)