Our Area's of Expertise

Positive Psychology  - First and foremost we are a Positive Psychology Practice. Positive Psychology places emphasis on leveraging positive emotions and positive individual traits to improve wellbeing and facilitate personal development. We assist our client to identify and apply their signature strengths to achieve important live goals. Individual strengths that can be leveraged in the service of positive change include the capacity for love and work, courage, compassion, resilience, creativity, curiosity, integrity, self-knowledge, moderation, self-control, and wisdom.

Dr Martin Seligman: What is Positive Psychology?

The Role of Positive Emotion

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, fulfillment and flow

Coaching Psychology- Coaching psychology is a fast growing and relatively new approach to the enhancement of human performance. The application of Coaching Psychology involves the use of theoretically grounded and scientifically validated techniques to help create behavioural change, and enhance personal development and performance. Coaching Psychology differs from Clinical Psychology in that the emphasis is personal development (in the area of work, relationships, and life in general) as opposed to personal recovery (from mental health concerns). Coaching can help you to realise your goals, as long as you are willing to set the wheels in motion. After the initial assessment phase and subsequent work on improving your mindset and behavioral patterns, you can proceed to implement your strategy for success.

Clinical Psychology - Clinical Psychology is oriented to the diagnosis, and treatment of mental health and behavior difficulties. In our capacity as Clinical Psychologists we utilises a range of best-practice assessment and intervention strategies (like the words intervention strategies to intervention strategies). Intervention strategies to address mental health issues such as depression and anxiety have been extensively researched with clear evidence that working with an experienced and suitably qualified psychologist can be of significant benefit. As Clinical Psychologists we have an in-depth understanding of mental health issues and the range of treatment strategies that have been proven to be effective. Clinical issues are often best addressed with the advice and support of more than one specialist. Our clinical expertise enables us to effectively communicate with GP’s, Psychiatrists, and other specialists regarding our clients treatment needs and recovery strategy.

Some of our Psychologists are members of the Clinical College of Psychology. Membership to this college requires the that the practitioner meet the standards of excellence determined by the Australian Psychological Society (APS).

Treatment Strategies 'that work' - 4life psychologists use a range of powerful research-validated strategies to help client achieve important mental health and personal development objectives. A few of the treatment approaches that we apply in working with our clients include:

Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy - Our team have personally trained with the founder of Schema-Focused Therapy, Dr Jeff Young. Dr Young, originally worked closely with Dr. Aaron Beck, the founder of Cognitive Therapy. While treating clients at the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Young and his colleagues identified that some people had difficulty benefiting from the standard Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy. He discovered that these people often had long-standing patterns or themes in thinking, feeling and behaving/coping that required a different approach. Dr. Young's attention turned to ways of helping clients to address and modify these deeper patterns or themes, also known as “schemas” or “lifetraps.”

Schema-Focused Therapy has shown remarkable results in helping people to change negative (“maladaptive”) patterns which they have lived with for a long time, even when other methods and efforts they have tried before have been largely unsuccessful.

View a slide show on Schema Therapy

If you would like to know more about Schema Therapy and how it might be of assistance to you, feel free to give us a call.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) has been referred to as The Third Wave of Behaviour Therapy as it incorporates a range of treatment strategies that extend the clients capacity to respond to life challenges with breater creativity and flexibility. ACT uses a variety of verbal, experiential and homework techniques to help patients make experiential contact with previously avoided private events (thoughts, feelings, sensations), without excessive verbal involvement and control – and to make powerful life enhancing choices.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (also known as cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT) is a state-of-the-art, highly effective approach to psychological treatment.

Cognitive therapy is essentially a method that identifies and helps a person to correct specific errors in what he or she is thinking that produces negative or painful feelings. These erroneous or distorted thoughts also influence the person on a behavioral level, and result in maladaptive choices or reactions. In treating a person who is experiencing psychological difficulties, we find that the most effective point of intervention is at the level of the person's thoughts, and that if changes are made in thinking (automatic thoughts, assumptions and core beliefs), changes in emotions and behavior will follow. Furthermore, behavioral techniques and strategies are employed as needed to enhance the treatment outcome (i.e., anger management, relaxation training, graduated exposure to feared situations, assertiveness training). The course of treatment is typically brief, and people usually experience relatively rapid relief and enduring progress.

Cognitive therapy's elegantly simple model has proven to be the most powerful and successful type of psychological treatment in outcome studies conducted over the past several decades.