Assessment is typically a 90 minute session with the individual and/or family to establish the reason you have come to therapy, your goals of therapy, the history and current challenges of the reason you have come to therapy and the fit between you and Tania. It’s the first step in establishing a working relationship.

Psychometric tests may be used in the assessment to better understand behaviour and emotions, and to track progress. Assessment outcomes will be discussed with you.

Systemic Family Therapy is typically a series of 60 minute appointments with your family members.  Family Therapy aims to improve relationships within families, develop understanding and work through roadblocks inhibiting your family working well together, support expression of difficult thoughts and emotions, learn more about family member’s needs, build on strengths and introduce sustainable changes .

Common topics discussed in family therapy sessions include communication, problems and conflicts, relationship changes, family functioning, unique situations, introducing and maintaining change, parenting/co-parenting, grief and loss.

Couples Therapy is typically a series of 60 minute appointments with an individual or couple. Couples Therapy is designed provide a supportive space to help couples understand and resolve challenges in relationships. 

Common topics in couple’s therapy include communication, problems and conflicts, relationship changes, relationship transitions, emotional and physical intimacy, grief and loss, parenting/co-parenting.

FBT is a psychological treatment for eating disorders, where the young person and family attend therapy together. FBT core assumption is that parents have the knowledge and skill to support their child in recovery from an eating disorder, siblings are key support relationships, and the role of the clinician is to coach, support and work collaboratively with parents towards recovery for the whole family. FBT is the best empirically informed treatment available for children and young people with eating disorders, and the treatment most likely to bring them to physical health quickly. FBT focuses on recovery from the eating disorder as the primary goal of treatment however recognises that many young people may present with additional mental health concerns that will be addressed as treatment progresses.

The therapy is provided over 3 phases focusing initially on nutritional and physical recovery with parent control, then gradual return to adolescent control of developmentally appropriate tasks, and finally building resiliency and relapse prevention. Therapy begins weekly, transitions to fortnightly and then 4-6 weekly. Sessions are typically 60 minutes. Every family is unique and the therapy allows flexibility to work with each family strengths and challenges in the recovery journey.

This treatment is best known for its effectiveness in treating children, adolescents and young adults with Anorexia Nervosa or restrictive eating disorders. It has also been effectively adapted for the treatment of Atypical Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa and Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorders. 

Regular appointments with your General Practitioner are required undertake medical monitoring of the young person, specifically in the early stages (Phase 1) of FBT.

Parent Focused Treatment for eating disorders is essentially the same as Family Based Treatment (FBT) however the parents meet with the FBT therapist, and the child/young person’s weight, medical monitoring and mental health status are monitored by another clinician, typically a General Practitioner. The focus and content of the parent sessions are the same as FBT but without the direct engagement and interaction of the young person.

Attachment Based Family Therapy (ABFT) aims to help a young person and parent/s to repair ruptures or breakdowns in their relationship, and to work together to develop or rebuild trust and emotional security in the relationship. ABFT is an interpersonal, process-orientated and emotionally-focused approach. Sessions are typically 60 minutes each, sessions are initially with young person alone, parent/s alone, and finally everyone together.

ABFT is empirically supported as an effective treatment for adolescents experiencing depression or suicidal ideation. There is growing evidence supporting ABFT use as an adjunct to, or after, FBT, to support adolescent-parent relationships in recovery. ABFT has also been used effectively to support gender incongruent young people to have difficult conversations with parents struggling to accept a young person’s gender.

Emotion Focused Therapy (EFT) primary goal is to facilitate the exploration, comprehension and regulation of emotions to foster personal growth, improve overall mental health and improve relationships. EFT places emotions at the core of our behaviours and overall well-being. EFT is effective in helping individuals, couples and families. It can help individuals with a range of mental health challenges including trauma, eating disorders, anxiety and depression.

Couples and families find EFT helpful in resolving relationship, attachment and communication challenges. Empirical support for EFT is strong, demonstrating improvements consistently in mental health and relationships. Tania provides EFT as a stand-alone therapy, and integrated into a range of other therapeutic methods to enhance your recovery.

Emotion Focused Skills Training (EFST) is an empirically supported intervention that guides parents to navigate their own and their child’s emotions, enhance their own and their child’s motivation for change, and transform challenging relationships in the family.  

EFST has demonstrated positive change in a child’s mental health where only the parent attends EFST. Parents with children of any age (child, adolescent, adult) who are struggling with mental health challenges including but not exclusively eating disorders, social or education struggles, will likely benefit from EFST.

EFST is available to individuals and families. EFST is also available in group format.

Multi Family Therapy (MFT) is an intensive treatment for families where a child or young person has a restrictive eating disorder.  Several families are brought together over a number of days to work together to share experiences, support and learn from one another. Working together in this way, with families facing similar problems, helps families create new perspectives, opens possibility for mutual support and feedback, and reduces isolation and stigmatisation.  

Research of MFT has demonstrated improvements in child/young person’s physical health, reduction in child/young person’s self-reported eating disorder symptoms and depression, increase in parent confidence in caring for their child/young person, and a reduction in family isolation.

MFT is typically offered as a 4 day therapeutic workshop, adjunct or alongside, Family Based Treatment (FBT). The initial focus is on eating disorder related themes such as managing meal times and the impact of eating disorder on family life. Over the 4 days themes move to broader child/adolescent and family lifecycle challenges that influence recovery for the whole family. Across the 4 days of MFT, multiple families work as a large group, groups are facilitated for parents (together, mothers only, fathers only), siblings and young people, single family activities and mixed family activities.