Vanessa Poliness

Approach

As a psychologist I work from a psychodynamic orientation and have a trauma-informed approach, recognising that trauma is common and people accessing health services may have been affected by trauma. The therapeutic relationship is integral and fosters a safe and trusting space, creating transparency, empowerment, collaboration and reflection. Psychodynamic therapy provides clients with an opportunity to explore childhood experiences and their interpretation, in an effort to understand how they have been negatively impacted and the link between their current issues. Having greater insight provides a client with a sense of control and empowerment, allowing them to be an active agent in their own journey of change. With a greater understanding of themselves, clients may make healthier, adaptive decisions about their behaviour and their future.

Critical Incident Debriefings: I am trained to facilitate Critical Incident Debriefing sessions and am available to attend the workplace following a critical incident.

Traumatic stress, as a result of a critical incident, is marked by a heightened sense of arousal. The experience is so overwhelming that we cannot assimilate and make sense of the experience in the moment. Our capacity to integrate and make sense of the situation is impaired due to the rapid incoming data,. As a result, there may be confusion, gaps in memory and distortions, eg. in time. When there are gaps in memory, we tend to fill them in with the worst possible scenarios.

A critical debriefing aims to provide a detailed reconstruction of the facts and is most likely to provide the information that will clarify the involvement of all concerned. The facts and sequence of events is the strongest basis for providing resolution to the stress-related misconstructions. We are then more likely to assimilate the event more accurately and provide a more accurate perspective.

Experience

I have been a practising psychologist since 2002 and have mostly worked with men and women in the forensic field. Much of my work has involved individual counselling and facilitating groups. I have held positions of leadership and enjoy shaping and developing other psychologists, as well as contributing positively to the profession.