Vicki's Clinic
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    • Attachment Focused Family Therapy
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    • Family Therapy for Bulimia
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Psychoanalytic & Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
Short, Medium and Long Term Intensive Therapy
A Confidential Service

About Vicki's Clinic

Vicki's Clinic

I provide contemporary Psychoanalytic and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy to adults and older adolescents. 

​Psychotherapy has as its basic objective, personality growth.  Psychotherapy stems from psychoanalytic theories of human behaviour and mental life, regarding the individual as an ever changing dynamic system, and assumes that many emotional and cognitive functions and experiences take place in the unconscious.  Above is a link to a podcast about psychoanalytic psychotherapy.  Follow the link above to hear Dr Norman Doidge speak about psychoanalytic psychotherapy. 

Psychoanalytic practitioners treat patients with multiple or chronic mental disorders, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, severe anxiety and depression and those suffering long term abuse and trauma. Evidence-based research indicates that the treatment of complex psychological problems requires longer-term , in-depth intervention than can be offered by brief, structured therapies, and demonstrates the efficacy and lasting benefit of longer-term psychoanalytic treatment for complex difficulties  Such treatment have been shown to reduce hospitalisations, decrease loss of work and study time, and reduce  the need for years of costly prescription pharmaceuticals. While brief, structured interventions, may be helpful for less severe disorders, they are less likely to be helpful with more severe, complex and co-morbid presentations. In many cases attempts to treat people with such severe presentations via brief interventions can be counter-productive. The often promoted 10 session treatment framework, inadvertently fosters the idea that all problems can and should be able to be effectively addressed within the time-frame of short-term therapy. There is a risk of significant negative impact if treatment is terminates prematurely as MBS rebates are exhausted. In fact it can also be of serious damage seriously unwell and fragile patients are are offered brief interventions and terminated prematurely, leaving the patient further traumatised and damaged.  
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychologically-minded/201711/selling-bad-therapy-trauma-victims

​In addition to my University level Masters studies in mental health (Master of Social Work, Master of Psychotherapy), I have also completed the intensive training in Contemporary Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy.  I have undertaken training in Australia and the US, in the Family Based Treatment (Maudsley Method) of adolescent eating disorders, and am a Certified Provider of the Maudsley Method Family Based Treatment for the treatment of eating disorders in adolescents. I also work individually with adults with an eating disorder. An article on therapy treatments is here: evamusby.co.uk/therapists-treatments-anorexia/

I have additional couples therapy experience arising from my training and Internship at Relationships Australia, my externship with the International Centre for Excellence in Emotion Focused Therapy and Level 3 Gottman Method Couples Therapy. Couples I see have been in conflict, struggling to communicate, distressed by differences in sexual needs, feeling distanced from each other and/or troubled by one partner's struggles with depression or gambling for example. 

I work individually with people in medium- to long-term Contemporary Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy; a specialist depth-psychology, medium-term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, and incorporate where indicated: Transference-focused, Mentalization, Dialectical Behavioural, Cognitive Behavioural, Interpersonal, Acceptance and Commitment, and Motivational Enhancement Therapies for example.

In all of my work you will find that I presuppose that the early stages of life are critical to the development of all later evolving structures and functions - particularly of the brain and mind - and can impact on current dilemmas and response to life events and trauma. I also believe that emotion is central to deeply understanding the human condition and experience, and that unconscious processes and phenomena lie at the core of the self, throughout the lifespan. 

Advanced training:
  • Intensive training (over 4+ years) in the specialist field of contemporary Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists
  • Specialist supervision which I undertake thrice weekly individually, and fortnightly peer supervision 
  • The Specialist Course in Couples Therapy and Internship at Relationships Australia, and Emotion Focused Couples Therapy, including an externship with the International Centre for Excellence in Emotion Focused Therapy (2012).
  • Intensive training and supervision with the U.S. Institute for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders 2013 (and at Westmead Children's Hospital in Sydney 2005)  in the practice of Family Based Treatment of Adolescent Eating Disorders.
  • Level 3 training Gottman Method Couples Therapy. 

Recent workshops I have completed are: 
  • Internal Family Systems Therapy with Bonnie Weiss and the Bouverie Centre
  • Attachment Based Family Therapy of Adolescent Depression (with or without suicidality) with Dr Gary Diamond
  • Introductory Course in Contemporary Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists
  • New Developments in Motivational Interviewing with Dr William Miller
  • Dialectical Behavioural Therapy with Marsha Linehan
  • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy with the Australian DBT Institute at the Epworth Hospital in Camberwell
  • The Gottman Method of Couples Therapy Level 3 with Drs John Gottman and Julie Schwatrz Gottman

Multidisciplinary treatment, i.e. additional services, may be needed, particularly if you are in need of immediate or acute and active psychiatric care or hospitalisation where there is high risk of self-harm, suicide or medical compromise from starvation.

Address: 7-9 Bardolph Street, Glen iris 3147 Mob: 0412 563638 Email: vicki.odwyer@gmail.com Fax: 03 9011 9656
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  • Home
  • Individual Treatment
    • Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
    • Adult Eating Disorders
    • Adolescent Eating Disorders
    • Internal Family Systems Therapy
  • Couples Therapy
  • Family Therapy
    • Attachment Focused Family Therapy
    • FBT for Adolescent Anorexia
    • Family Therapy for Bulimia
    • Early Intervention in Eating Disorders
  • Appointments
  • Privacy
  • Contact