Paula Yeatman

Why Counselling

There are many reasons you might seek counselling. My role is to work with you to explore your experience and find new ways to understand and approach:

• Relationship challenges
• Parenting and family matters
• Grief and loss
• Depression or anxiety
• Trauma and abuse
• Alcohol and other drug, misuse and addiction
• Confidence and self esteem issues
• Life transitions and changes
• Living with health challenges
• Identity issues
• Spirituality and meaning

Together we journey towards understanding as you build strength and trust in your own capacity to make the changes you desire.

My Clients

As a counsellor it is a privilege to work with many people. I have worked with children, adolescents and families, but over recent years predominantly:

• Women (counselling for grief and loss, relationships, family, life transitions, anxiety, depression, identity and retirement)
• Men (counselling for anxiety, depression, grief and loss, relationships and work issues)
• Gay and Lesbian (counselling for anxiety, depression, identity, relationships)
• Couples (counselling for anxiety, stress, depression, relationships, work issues, family, life transitions)

My clients come from a diverse range of ethnicities.

Our sessions are places for you to be seen and heard in a caring, accepting way that honors where you are at, where you would like to be, and acknowledges the healing space between.

My Approach

There are many therapeutic approaches, and some I draw on include:

• Understanding what drives you, perhaps involving some form of psychodynamic therapy where we reveal unconscious elements and feelings you might not yet be aware of.
• Changing behaviours to facilitate safety, self-care and success that might involve motivational interviewing or other cognitive behavioural approaches.
• Changing patterns of avoidance and approach to become more intentional and mindfully engaged, involving acceptance and commitment techniques.
• Narrative approaches to support you to find the skills, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities that will help you reduce the impact of problems on your life.
• Transactional analysis to help you recognise the games we can all play and how they impact on what we say and believe about ourselves.
• Mindfulness to create a practice of mindful curiosity and kindness.

Together we might build a tool kit of protective factors that can be tried on for size and practised in therapy to prepare you for making changes in your world. Above all we’ll work together with an approach that best suits you.

About Me

I was born in Christchurch, lived many years in Wellington and now live in Auckland with my partner. I am a mother to two adult children.

My background is in teaching, in communications management and in business.

I am a Member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors (MNZAC), the governing body for counsellors in New Zealand. I have excellent supervision to support the quality of my counselling practice and I take part in ongoing professional development.

I am ACC Registered for counselling people for sexual abuse and rape.