Peninsular Psychology

At Peninsular Psychology, Umina we are dedicated to providing psychological counselling services of the highest quality. Psychologists at Peninsular Psychology are all specialists with post-graduate training in their field of psychology.

Our psychologists are continually improving their knowledge and keep their training up to date. They use only treatments that are based on sound research.

To make an appointment call ph. 02 4344 3594 and let our friendly staff assist you. Alternatively ask your GP about the Better Outcomes in Mental Health and a referral.

Peninsular Clinical & Forensic Psychology BLOG

See http://peninsularpsychology.blogspot.com/

when women are violent 02/02/2010

As far as I know she is the one who is violent. The kids confirm that mum is a drunk and a prescription drug addict. She looses the plot when drunk and she has physically damaged her husband. Recently she was carted off to the local psychiatric ward by police after breaking his nose. The kids didn't want her home and her husband didn't want her home. This was not the first time.

So what to do? She wanted to come home to her house, she owned it after all.

He was advised to visit local police. he returned saying that the police said they could do nothing. Clearly they can do something. They in fact have an obligation to do something if children under sixteen are involved. They can escort her from the house if they understand that the children are frightened and feel threatened.

Hopefully we can try again. More ...

The power of delusional thinking 14/01/2010

He has been married for over forty years. The last five have been dominated by a belief that his wife was unfaithful. He has become angry and irritable. He thinks about it all day, every day. He replays the imagined scenario over and over and over. She denies anything happened. The only evidence he has is a middle of the night door opening and closing, seeing his best friend walk past a door way and then his wife returning to bed. The "evidence" is sketchy at best. He has not left her but he wont believe her either. He looks for evidence of her crime at every opportunity. He sees it in the fact that doesn't talk to her "other man" and that she does. He sees it in her distress and in her lack of distress. She describes herself as anxious and he figures that "must be" because she really did do it. He punishes her at every opportunity for her disloyalty by cranky, snappy and irritable.

The interesting thing is that it is only a small step to other paranoid thinking. Paranoid people find evidence where there is none, they look for the tiniest confirmation of their belief, they see patterns where there is only randomness. They find a conspiracy of secrets and lies when other people see innocence. they see signs and symbols of the "truth."

In this case it is interesting that his daughter has been diagnosed with paranoid psychosis. More ...

no comments? 07/12/2009

and here was i thinking that no one had ever read my posts. i figured no comments must mean no readers. well actually people do read and try to post comments. problem is they have to be "members" to have the comment recorded. folk who read my bloggs are not keen to join anything or to provide information to anyone. They are a very anonymous bunch. so i guess I'll just keep writing. More ...

Therapy sacking 27/11/2009

I think of it as ball you never saw coming. The comment in therapy that is simple, unemotional and without much meaning but which changes the course of the theapeutic relationship. Today I experienced this which (thankfully) happens rarely these days. I have a long term relationship with a client which is fruitful, dynamic and meaningful . I have comforted her, challenged her and helped her understand problematic relationships over many months. One session, one comment, suddenly she was offended and embarrassed. Suddenly I went from being "wonderful" to sacked. I had no notion that the comment would mean anything at all let alone that it was somehow loaded with negative meaning for her at that moment. Like I said, I just never saw it coming.

I guess that relationships in general are fraught with moments where one person comments and the other takes offence, while the first hasn't got any idea why. I hope that somewhere down the track the client will see that what happened to me in therapy may have happened to others in her life and may explain some of the strains in relationships. Hopefully she'll see that others are also probalby as mystified as me. There should be a word or a phrase to describe the process of comment, offence, no idea why. Any ideas? More ...

cross examination - what a joy! 24/11/2009

Oh what joy! A request to attend Commonwealth Family Court to be cross examined on a report written some weeks ago. The whole wigs and gowns thing. For all aspiring psychologists who will be asked to court some observations...

Here was I thinking that I would be invited in for a respectful chat about my opinions. What a shock! Not a chance. Does the phrase: "hauled over the coals" ring any bells? Its amazing how the word "madam" can be turned into an insult - as in: "Do you expect us to believe, Madam that..." or "In hind-sight, Madam, do you think you should have asked..."

The Barister criticised me for not keeping detailed enough notes, not asking the relevent questions, not seeking corroborating opinions, not knowing the details of my billing system, not having received a directive letter from the solicitor, believing that psychological testing was objective, in short every step of the assessment process was inadequate, unsubstanciated and obviously biased. I left the box sweating but not crying - so it was not a complete disaster.

The moral of this story is not, however, what you'd expect. After I left and the judge began to sum up the cases the Barrister was humilated and reprimanded for his treatment of me. The court did not stop his barrage at the time, he was allowed to "run with it." But it did nothing to impress the man making the decision. I guess the moral is to tough it out, say no when you mean no, say "I can't know that" when you can't. Don't be afraid to be right even when confronted by a man in a wig. If he is wrong it is OK to say so. If he is asking something unreasonable it is OK to tell him so. He is only playing a part in the end.

Also if he says "diagnosis" when he meant to say "prognosis" make sure you let him know he doesn't know everything. More ...

When OCD turns a little scary 07/11/2009

A young man was sent to me recently by Probation and Parole for treatment of his OCD. He was on Parole. That is, he had committed a serious enough crime to have been given a jail sentence and had since been paroled for it. An interesting combination I thought - OCD and the criminal system. the connection between the two was not completely obvious and no all that usual.

He had been convicted of crimes that involved obsessing about a woman. He had pursued her and then eventually hated her because she rejected him. He turned his attention to revenge on her. Not a comfortable development at all. He did not succeed in hurting her physically but relentlessly discredited and humiliated her publically and professionally. A prison sentence may well have been the circuit breaker that stopped a more unhappy outcome.

More interesting, perhaps, is the thought patterns beneath his very still surface. He does look unusual. He has very direct eye contact, no intonation in his speech and no emotion. He speaks as little as possible and never has physical contact. His condition at the moment manifests with compulsive washing of his feet. Many, many times per day. He is very bright.

He writes rather than speaks a lot in session. He writes about the hatred he harbours for the "Christians" that bullied him at school. He writes about the "eutherial slime" that he washes off. He washes off the contamination of people who are hateful and who have hated him in the past. It isn't germs in the conventional sense he is anxious about, it is the germs of the soul that he wants to avoid at all costs. More ...

Abuse of the AVO system 29/10/2009

In the past twelve months I have come across a number of people who have become victims of a system that was set up with the best of intentions but which has in some cases gone horribly wrong. Imagine a woman who seeks and gets an AVO (perhaps for good reason) but then travels from Sydney to the Central Coast to harrass her husband into breaking it. She sits in the back of his truck, takes his tools out of the truck and steals his work mobile phone. He cannot touch her or restrain her. He can do nothing but stand and watch because she has an AVO against him. If he touches her he is looking at prison. What is the alternative? This story is one of many that are similar. The AVO used as a weapon. Women absolutely need the protection of the legal system but I wonder if it needs a bit a re-vamp to get it working properly again? More ...