Narrative-Invitational Approaches to Working with Men who use Violence
Clients:
For Practitioners:
Accountability to self and others through
Helpful
Conversations
Adelaide Narrative is a collective of accredited therapists helping clients address a range of difficulties. We specialise:
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family law counselling for families who are separating
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personal and relationship counselling for personal and relational health
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family and community therapy
Adelaide Narrative therapists are committed to working with individuals, couples and families in understanding what is important to you in your life and sense of self. All therapists are experienced and trained in assisting people to overcome the effects of adversity, abuses of power, and violence. We see therapy as part of a restorative justice after harm done.
Practitioners and teams can seek clinical supervision, training and development with us. Masters of Counselling students can seek student placement.
Adelaide Narrative Practitioners
Partnership. Trust. Reflection.
We come together with shared ethics and commitment to providing a partnership with clients for exploration and reflection across life and relationships.
Pshko Marden
Pshko is an experienced narrative therapist and accredited mental health social worker with over a decade of experience in therapeutic contexts both in Australia and abroad. He provides consultations to individuals, couples, and families impacted by mental health adversities and trauma. Rebates available.
Sonja Baram
Sonja has decades of experienced in providing therapeutic space for connections with self and others. She is a teacher-supervisor in collaborative therapies. Registered clinical counsellor and practitioner-theorist in narrative therapies. Sonja is the Principal of Adelaide Narrative. Rebates available.
Mark Byrne
Mark provides therapeutic engagement to support people addressing effects of violence/abuse. Mark also serves to support people to stop their practices of violence and abuse. Mark is a registered social worker and narrative therapist.
Tony Fletcher
Tony consults with men regarding becoming safer and more connected as fathers and partners and building connections to a lifestyle of respect for themselves and others. Tony is a registered social worker and narrative therapist, with an interest in progressive philosophies and men's ethics.
Counselling Rates:
Up to $180 per individual session of 60 mins
Up to $200 per couple and family therapy session of 90 minutes.
Please consult your counsellor.
Rates are set by professional standards, however we establish rates for our service that are ethical and reasonable considering the challenges faced by families at present. We are a private and confidential service.
Low-Cost Services
For low-cost services please see our Student Clinic or the Australian Government Family Services Online website
Book with Masters Students on placement delivering therapy sessions at our Low-Cost Counselling Clinic. Sessions cost $60 with students from Adelaide & Flinders Universities, supervised by senior clinicians. Rebates are not available.
Rebates may be available:
Private Health Insurance rebates for Counselling services are available with select therapists.
Mental Health Medicare Rebates may be available with select therapists for clients concerned with worries and a referral from a GP.
Medicare Better Health Rebates cannot apply to rates for counselling on referral from lawyers or on court order as these pertain to family separation and legal matters.
Undoubtably family separation affects everyone's mental health, Adelaide Narrative Counsellors will respond to these concerns within the context of the relationship and legal factors.
The following Private Health Insurance Companies offer rebates for our counselling services:
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Police Health (ARGH)
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Teacher's Insurance (ARGH)
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Nurses & Midwifes Health (ARGH)
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UniHealth (ARGH)
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Medibank Private
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AHM
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BUPA
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ARGH - affiliated services
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HCF
Our Counsellors are registered with their Professional Associations, meaning that they are accountable to a Code of Conduct and that our clients have independent processes for feedback and concerns.
Low-Cost Counselling Service
Adelaide Narrative Therapy connects with Adelaide University, Flinders University and Monash University to offer students undertaking Masters in Counselling placement in our Low Cost Service
Low-Cost Sessions are $60
Students undertake supervision, and are registered with counselling peak body Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).
Masters Students have practice-training in their educational settings, and come to counselling with a range of experience in work and their communities. Masters students have excellent skills and are on placement with Adelaide Narrative with interest in narrative therapy, invitational ethical and collaborative practices and private practice in family law counselling.
Client Services
Our experienced therapists provide individual, family, and group counselling sessions, to explore your life and relationships. Counselling services to support relationships, separation, co-parenting, family therapy and concerns about relationship stress, anger, conflict and antagonism, mental health & the self. We help think about the self as psychologically shaped from context, lived experience and relational power, including trauma. We find in our experience that collaborative dialogue is supportive of stepping toward greater understanding of your life and relationships. We apply therapy as activism to seek restorative justice for children and young people, where possible.
Family Law Counselling
We accept recommendations stated in Court Orders from the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and/or referrals from Family Lawyers and practitioners for counselling to address co-parenting, and other post-separation concerns including family violence.
Counselling sessions can be court-reportable:
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After 6-8 sessions counsellors can reasonably report to the court on progress, you may opt for more.
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Therapeutic focus: Counsellors invite you into an ethical and accountable change process for your parenting hopes. We are looking to understand you and your particular story.
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Legal focus. Counsellors take a detailed focus on legal matters to help you make sense and context of separation.
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Letters and Reports can be requested, as required by Court Order
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Fees are discussed with your counsellor. Legal Aid clients accepted.
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Private health insurance rebates are available. Medicare does not offer rebates for Family Law Counselling
Personal Therapy
Therapy helps find ways to understand the self and navigate our lives within powerful contexts of experiences, including trauma, and complex intersections of relationships, families, and communities. Therapists become talking-partners for reflection and understanding.
Relationships, Friendships & Family
Regardless of how many people and who is in the room, everyone is welcome. Counsellors are responsible to managing space and time so that full meaning and expression of intentions can be communicated.
Information for Lawyers, Mediators and Legal Practitioners
Adelaide Narrative accepts clients where violence has been alleged in family and couple separation matters. Counselling invites clients to take full personal responsibility for their actions and the effects of their actions on the child/ren and other parent. Invitational accountability helps clients considers ways in which they would like to improve all relationships in their lives. Counselling sessions can accompany any legal process: conflict, separation, divorce, meditation, financial and property mediation, parenting, and children's wellbeing. We seek to apply restorative justice principles where possible.
We do consult with the Independent Children's Lawyers and we will request the legal documentation to support the counselling and subsequent report process.
We have continued the work of Alan Jenkins, Rob Hall, Terry Callahan and colleagues at NADA in Adelaide's West, in providing expert witness court reports to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Our experience in this work comes from decades of individual, family and men's group counselling for behavioural change, anger management, regulation and broad-based respect and accountability assessments on specialised family violence teams. We accept all cases where allegations become sticking points, including those difficult cases referred to the Evatt List and the Lighthouse pathway.
“I can be changed by what happens to me.
But I refuse to be reduced by it.”
Maya Angelou
Integrity & Oversight | Policy Information
Practitioners at Adelaide Narrative work in a private capacity. Their practice is covered by their respective professional association. To fulfil accreditation requirements therapists regularly engage in supervision and extended professional development. We attempt to do this across a wide range of advanced training in different modalities, theories and professions such as Law and Ethics.
More Information:
+ Insurance & Code of Practice
Sonja Baram is a Clinical Counsellor and Accredited Supervisor, registered with PACFA. Sonja has a Masters in Social Sciences (Counselling), Advanced Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Monash), Registered Clinical Counsellor and Accredited Supervisor (Psychotherapist and Counselling Federation of Australia PACFA and Australian Counsellor's Association). Associate Editor with the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy. Member of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists. Private report writer for the Federal Family Court of Australia. Supervisor of Masters in Counselling Students. Sessions with Sonja can be rebated by private health insurance including Bupa, Medibank Private, HCF, Police Health, ARGH affiliated, and more.
Pshko (Shko) Marden, Tony Fletcher & Mark Byrne are Social Workers registered with the AASW. Mr Pshko Marden can accept Medicare Better Health rebate referrals from General Medical Practitioners for clients with concerns about a range of worries about feelings such as anxiety and depression. Pshko is an experienced narrative therapist and accredited mental health social worker with over a decade of experience in therapeutic contexts both in Australia and abroad. He provides therapeutic consultations to individuals, couples, and families impacted by mental health adversities and trauma.
The Practice is covered under professional indemnity insurance and public liability insurance of individual practitioners professional requirements. Our students in the Masters of Counselling at the University of Adelaide and Flinders University, are working toward professional membership of PACFA. They are covered both by their respective universities and by the insurance of accredited supervisors. This practice also adheres to the South Australian Code of Conduct for Certain Health Care Workers. More information regarding this Code and any complaints or concerns can be found here: https://www.hcscc.sa.gov.au/. The brochure from the Commissioner can be downloaded here: Know Your Rights Charter
Privacy: Adelaide is a small and connected place, confidentiality and privacy is vital. We keep minimal contact information for clients for scheduling and payment purposes only. We keep counselling notes that can be subject to subpoena given the nature of work that we do for the Federal Circuit and Family Law Court of Australia. We do Telehealth to anywhere across Australia.
Grievances: PACFA can only hear grievances and complaints against counsellors and psychotherapists who are listed on the PACFA National Register and who were listed at the time therapy was provided. PACFA website: www.pacfa.org.au Before lodging a complaint to PACFA, first check that the practitioner is listed on the PACFA National Register. You can search the PACFA Register at the Find a Therapist page or contact the PACFA office on 03 9046 2270. If the practitioner you want to lodge complaint about is listed on the register, then email ethics@pacfa.org.au with your name and contact details; the therapist's name, a description of the complaint and the date on which the incident occurred (if it was a specific incident). PACFA addresses grievances and complaints in accordance with the Professional Conduct Procedures 2024. *A complaint is known as a 'grievance' after a complaint meets certain criteria, such as the psychotherapist or counsellor being a PACFA member at the time of the therapy subject to complaint.
A Note on Theoretical and Philosophical Orientation: Our work in the area of Family Law and our understanding about the social-relational construction of self-identity means that we orient our work, philosophies and theory to Social and Relational Psychologies that are expansive and qualitative. Our work is not taught in current Australian psychology post-graduate programs, but rather learnt on the job in a peer-mentoring, supervision and "apprenticeship to the work" style. It is collaborative and dialogical but also founded upon a robust learning and practice of relational and legal ethics. We focus on understanding power in relationships. Conversely, Australian post-graduate Psychology programs orientate to a medical-model and thus lead to academic teaching and practices of diagnosis and assessment of disorders. This focuses less on power, and more on norms and normative meanings. The paradigms are different, but they not adversaries. All social-sciences are important and helpful.
Address
136 Port Road, Hindmarsh, South Australia, 5007
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“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”
bell hooks