Body Psychotherapy & Counselling

Body psychotherapy aims to help people work through areas of their life where they are struggling or experiencing difficulties.  By working with the body, emotions, mind, and spirit, body psychotherapy assists clients to access feelings more fully and to be supported by being received and witnessed, resulting in healing.   Body Psychotherapy believes that anxiety and depression are not feelings but a state or way of being and by working with the person as a whole we discover feelings underneath these states.  When allowed to be felt and fully processed and received in a safe therapeutic environment positive long lasting change can occur.

As a survival mechanism in our early years of life we create blockages within the body in the form of restricted breathing, tense muscles, certain postures that are coupled with beliefs about life and our place in the world.

Within the body’s tense muscles old feelings are held.  Sessions work with assisting clients to access deeper awareness of their emotions, feelings and behaviours. A combination of talk therapy with specific body work creates shifts that come from deep seated unconsciousness. This can release negativity and opens up the path to healing and long lasting positive change, allowing for a greater capacity to live life in a happier more satisfying way. Clients report great positive change within themselves and their lives with the ability to have more functional healthy relationships with oneself, friends, family and partners.

Deanne has a special interest in treating conditions of the nervous system and mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia and Chronic Fatigue.  Deanne is able to offer the unique combination of naturopathic assistance for mental health in combination with body psychotherapy. With her own personal experiences with depression, anxiety and relationship counselling, Deanne is uniquely qualified to assist others.

Elixir & Life is the only natural therapies practice within Australia offering a combination of nutritional and herbal medicine, alongside body psychotherapy to assist with stress and mental health issues.

Body psychotherapy can be beneficial and is appropriate for the treatment of health issues or situations such as:

What can you expect from Body Psychotherapy?

An authentic, organic and real approach to dealing with deep seated emotions, feelings and behaviours in a professional supportive therapeutic relationship. You will notice subtle and significant positive changes within yourself and your life.

Even if you feel that psychology or counselling have not worked for you in the past body psychotherapy may be a viable alternative for you. You will know within a few sessions if this type of therapy feels right for you.

CoupleS Therapy

Body psychotherapy has assisted many couples to find a deeper capacity for connection, love, joy and understanding in their relationship. To help couples gain greater awareness of their feelings towards the relationship and create the positive change in the relationship that they desire.

Deanne aims to assist the couple to work together on individual or shared blockages or painful places that come out in the relationship such as blame, being hurtful, control patterns, and withdrawal. By assisting the couple to meet each other around pain and difficulty and stay present and connected  the bond, love and security felt within the relationship develops.  By providing a safe environment and strengthening the couple as individuals and together they learn to tolerate conflict and resolve issues.

As individuals with different backgrounds we usually come into a relationship with some historical painful influences that affect how we view the world and in the most amplified expression this comes out in our closest and most intimate relationship with our partner.  Our intimate relationship requires us to share body, mind, heart, soul and sexuality. Any bumps in these areas will generally show up in some way.

Therapy assists couples to express their true selves in a gentle, safe and heart felt way and not hide behind defensive masks. It is a habitual response to use defensive masks even in our closest relationship in order to protect oneself.

Relationships often end because one, or both, parties feel they have fallen out of love with one another, the relationship lacks sex and intimacy, or they can’t stop fighting, or carry suppressed anger towards the other person. Surprisingly there are often many more layers underneath this. Difficulty in a relationship is usually wounding or blockages around love and sexuality, within our mind, body, heart and soul. Unfortunately we have not all had the right influences to know how a healthy relationship looks.

Couples therapy aims to deepen your understanding of each other, to allow what lies beneath the difficult painful places that make us destructive in our relationship to heal. Therapy helps to heal and have a deeper connection and relationship where joy and love are it’s drivers and life force. Our intimate relationship highlights our perception about ourselves and how we fit with love and another person. The principle of body psychotherapy is to reach the other person from our higher self that becomes more balanced and emotionally healthy.

Deanne’s aim is to work with couples to have a more connected relationship with joy, love and vibrancy.   She has been in a long term relationship for over 10 years herself and is open to couples in all situations.