Stephanie Cook

At  ST & A Psychology we are committed fully to helping you perceive value from each and every session. We will lean in and really care about you and your emotional suffering and pain, with compassion & understanding. With professionaism, enthusiasm and willingness, we will work extremely hard to help understand how and why your issues have developed and are being maintained. We will also help you to evaluate the effectiveness of your current coping skills and help you learn and apply  new more helpful coping/psychological skills. 

We will strongly believe in the strength and ability within you, to change your life, & manage your issues more effectively. As experts on mental health and change, we will respect you as the expert of your life. Thus, we will help you to work towards what is important, meaningful and purposeful for you, to better meet your psychological needs and achieve your goals of therapy in the most effective way. 

We have 13 highly skilled, experienced, professional, friendly, warm Psychologists (male and female) 26-62 ready to help you better cope with your challenges and issues, grow and improve your satisfaction with life and wellbeing.

Before booking you in with one of our psychologists, we will take great care and thought to help match you with the best psychologist. To do this we’ll ask you what you’re struggling with, what you want to change/improve/work on, your preferences of which type of psychologist you’re looking for, and the times and days for your sessions. We will then carefully match you with one of our psychologists  & book you in based on their skills, experience, availability & therapy style. 

Based on the research of what is the most effective therapy and what will help you reach your goals of therapy, we’ll work with you to schedule consistent appointments weekly to fortnightly in advance at times that suit you over a required duration. We’ll also help you set specific realistic achievable goals, walk you through how you can achieve them and consistently measure your progress along the way. 

We offer after hours appointments before and after school and work, and on Saturdays on days and times that work for you around your work/uni/school schedule. 

We offer face to face therapy sessions on site in one of our 9 spacious, modern, comfortable, therapy rooms as well as sessions via video/phone if you’d prefer the comfort of your home, office or car. 

To make therapy more affordable, With a referral from your GP and a mental health care plan, you may claim up to 10 Medicare rebates per calendar year for 10 of your therapy sessions. Also, you may claim rebates from your private health insurance. We also offer reduced fees for a small percentage of our clients who may be struggling financially.

People from diverse backgrounds with a range of issues and concerns seek counselling and we aim to create an environment where you feel safe and comfortable to be open, honest and yourself. We care about each person we work with and are dedicated to sharing our expertise to help you make the necessary changes you need in your life.

For further information please see the types of Client Issues we work with and the Types of Services we offer.

Attending sessions regularly is extremely important if you are going to make and sustain changes in your life. The research evidence shows that completing 12 weekly consistent sessions leads to more significant changes than 12 monthly sessions. Being open to and having a willingness to talk about difficult things with emotional vulnerability is important in helping you achieve your goals of therapy. Also, practising/working on new skills during and between sessions is necessary to better manage your issues and perceived problems. Further, a willingness to try new things and try out new ways of doing things and exposing yourself to difficult things where uncomfortable thoughts and feelings may arise is also an important aspect to making changes. Using a notepad and folder to record, collect and keep all information and handouts from therapy will help you to remember what you are working on, why and how. Often we’ll ask you to take notes and write down the commitments you make in session, to actions you’ll take each week between sessions. We often also ask you to take photos of these handouts or notes or things you’ve written down onto your mobile phone where you can easily access them and refer to them

The initial session(s) are about assessment and involve you describing what is troubling you. Specific information about your developmental, family, work, social and health history is taken, to better understand what is happening for you and why it is happening. We clarify the problems, set goals and expectations about what can be achieved, including how consistently you need to attend sessions and an approximate timeframe. Then, we suggest appropriate ways of working on your issues, based on what the issues are, how they’ve developed and what has proven to be effective for others with similar issues or perceived problems (this approach is known as using Evidence Based Treatments). It is important to note that the assessment part of your therapy continues throughout your therapy. Because each session you come in to therapy, the more your therapist gets to know you and your personality style and ways you cope with and manage issues, and also the more information you provide them about your issues, what triggers them, and how they are maintained and develop.

Your Therapist and you then begin working on your issues in session. And you also begin working on your issues out of session. In session, you will be asked to commit to activities and tasks which you and your therapist set together to help you make the changes you want to see in your life. Some of these tasks and activities may be new psychological skills/tasks, and some will be daily activities like getting to bed at a helpful time to allow you to get enough sleep, or increasing your cardio vascular exercise to 3-4 times per week for 35-40 minutes. Each person is different so your tasks you and your therapist set will be uniquely individual to you and your specific issues and goals of therapy.

The number of (50-55 minute) sessions you decide to commit to varies, depending on your particular issues, goals of therapy willingness to examine things, make change and stay the course of therapy when things get tough or difficult and are not changing or improving. As the person committing to therapy, you as the client make the decision as to how many sessions you are willing to commit to, over what period of time, how often. We will inform you of the research evidence around number of sessions over time when you complete your intake (initial process over the phone) with us, and as we get to know you and work with you in therapy we can inform you of consistency and duration of therapy as we go along the journey together.

Research suggests: 13-18 sessions of psychological therapy is needed to reach significant improvement and maintain the changes at 6 months follow up after therapy has finished. With the remaining 50% of clients needing 20 – 90+ sessions. Further, in Australia clients attend just 5 sessions of therapy on average. Meaning sadly the majority of clients do not attend enough therapy for a long enough period to achieve long lasting change and prevent relapse into poorer mental health.

Currently, at our Practice, patients attend 15+ sessions on average with our psychologists; and, we are focused on increasing this number. Thus, We understand the importance of you attending consistent sessions over the required duration of therapy to ensure you achieve the best treatment outcomes and will encourage you to book in weekly or fortnightly consistent sessions for a minimum of 13.

Thus, We focus on retaining our clients in therapy for the required duration of consistent sessions to help you achieve the best treatment outcomes + prevent you relapsing into previous poorer mental health. This means less of our clients choose to cease therapy before obtaining genuine, longer lasting benefits.

Our data we have collected in our Practice here at Simon Turmanis Associates reveals that approximately 20% of our clients require 10-12 weekly sessions. Usually these people have issues which are very specific and easily identifiable. Furthermore the issues usually are more transitory and sitiuational as opposed to long lasting/persistent.

Approximately 30% of our clients may require 13 to 20 sessions which may also move to fortnightly in frequency and therapy will persist over a longer period of time (6 – 12 months). Approximately 50% of clients will benefit from more than 20 sessions over a longer period of time such as 12 to 24 months. You are likely to discuss the most appropriate duration and frequency of sessions during sessions 1 and 2. However, sometimes what is initially focussed on and worked on in the first 10 to 12 sessions and what you and your therapist initially, believe is most important to focus on, may not become the most important or relevant area for you to work on moving forward. So during therapy your therapist and you will review and manage what has been done, what still would be worthwhile to work on and what skills you still need to learn or apply better/more consistently in your life. Sometimes to achieve all of your goals of therapy and prevent relapse back into old unhelpful patterns and poor mental health, working consistently (i.e once a week to once a fortnight) for 12 months+ is most helpful/recommended.

Morning, afternoon and evening sessions are available, Monday to Friday. Saturday morning appointments are also made frequently available. Availability and hours differ for each of our psychologists, please make sure to enquire about this with one of our client liaison officers.

Evidence Based Treatments are those shown to have significant impact in helping people reduce psychological symptoms (e.g. symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress), improve and enrich their lives, relationships and their satisfaction with life. We use these and other models in an integrative approach, tailored to each client’s needs. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Schema Therapy, Motivational Interviewing (MI), Solution Focused Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT), Psychodynamic and Psychoanalytic models are used. Each of the therapy models involve you learning new ways of coping and managing difficulties so that you can cope more helpfully, leading to a reduction of psychological symptoms and improvements in satisfaction with life.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is defined by the Australian Association for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as a generally short term, focused approach to the treatment of many types of emotional, behavioural and psychiatric problems (www.aacbtwa.org.au). “It is a collaborative and individualised program that helps individuals to identify unhelpful thoughts and behaviours and learn or relearn healthier skills and habits. It examines all elements that maintain a problem, including our thoughts (cognitions), feelings, behaviour and the environment. CBT has been practised widely for more than 30 years. It has been researched extensively, and has demonstrated effectiveness with a variety of emotional difficulties” (www.aacbtwa.org.au).

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)gets it name from one of its most fundamental messages: Accept what is out of your personal control, and commit to action that improves and enriches your life.

The aim of ACT is to maximise human potential for a rich, full & meaningful life. ACT does this by:

a) Teaching you psychological skills to deal with your painful thoughts and feelings effectively – in such a way that they have much less impact and influence over you (these are known as Mindfulness, Defusion, Acceptance, Present Moment, Grounding skills).

b) Helping you to clarify and stay connected to what is truly important, meaningful & purposeful to you – your values – then use that knowledge and greater connection to your values to guide, inspire and motivate you to change your life for the better.

c) Set Specific SMART goals in line with your values, inform others about these goals and values and Commit to these/follow through with actions.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) is a system of psychotherapy developed by Paul Gilbert that integrates techniques from cognitive behavioral therapy with concepts from evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, Buddhist psychology, and neuroscience. “One of its key concerns is to use compassionate mind training to help people develop and work with experiences of inner warmth, safeness and soothing, via compassion and self-compassion.”^[1]

The central therapeutic technique of CFT is compassionate mind training, which teaches the skills and attributes of compassion.^[2] Compassionate mind training helps transform problematic patterns of cognition and emotion related to anxiety, anger, shame, self-criticism, depersonalization, and hypomania.^[3]

Biological evolution forms the theoretical backbone of CFT. Humans have evolved with at least three primal types of emotion regulation system: the threat (protection) system, the drive (resource-seeking) system, and the soothing system.^[4] CFT emphasizes the links between cognitive patterns and these three emotion regulation systems.^[5] Through the use of techniques such as compassionate mind training and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), psychotherapy clients can learn to manage each system more effectively and respond more appropriately to situations.^[6] There are an increasing number of empirical research papers that demonstrate the importance of compassion as a way of directing behavior to deal with threat and resolve conflict.^[7]

Compassion focused therapy is especially appropriate for people who have high levels of shame and self-criticism and who have difficulty in feeling warmth toward, and being kind to, themselves or others.[1] Such problems of shame and self-criticism are often rooted in a history of abuse, bullying, neglect, and/or lack of affection in the family.[8] CFT can help such people learn to feel more safeness and warmth in their interactions with others and themselves.[1]

Numerous methods are used in CFT to develop a person’s compassion. For example, people undergoing CFT are taught to understand compassion from the third person, before transferring these thought processes to themselves.[9]

No it is not mandatory to have a referral to see one of our psychologists. You may call to speak with one of our client liaison officers and book in to see one of our psychologists without a referral, as long as the issues you are coming in for are things our psychologists can help you with.  However in order to be eligible for Medicare rebates, a referral from your general practitioner, psychiatrist or pediatrician is required. If you are referred by a third party like WorkCover, referral information must be made available at the time of making the appointment.  

In order to obtain a rebate from Medicare, your general practitioner, psychiatrist or pediatrician must assess you as eligible to receive a Mental Health Care Plan following which you can be referred to a psychologist.  Once a Mental Health Care Plan has been completed by your doctor, you will be able to obtain a Medicare rebate for up to 10 sessions per calendar year.

Please see our Rebates/Fees .

Any identifying or other therapy information that you disclose to your therapist will be treated with utmost privacy and respect. It is kept confidential and is only disclosed to additional parties (such as your GP, psychiatrist, or a family member), with your prior consent. Usually this is done when it is deemed important and necessary for a better understanding and treatment of your issues and you have consented to this first. However, psychologists are required to disclose information about you if it is demanded by law or if there is reasonable evidence to believe that someone is at risk of harm. Further, in order to achieve the most effective treatment outcomes for you, the treatment team at the practice will consult one another, and occasionally if required, a senior colleague in relation to your mental health.

As listed on our Consent Form for Therapy, we also collect, store and display on our website and practice flyers, brief de-identified data/information related to the treatment outcomes of our clients/patients. This data includes percentages of symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress and satisfaction with life scores measured through the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale and Satisfaction With Life Scale. During your treatment/therapy, you may choose to complete a “Service Evaluation” to provide feedback on How effective therapy was, and how many initial goals of therapy you achieved. This de identified information may also be stored and displayed on the website and practice flyers.

All of our Psychologists hold a undergraduate degree and honours degree in Psychology plus a minimum of 2 years supervised practice to obtain their registration as Fully Registered Psychologists with AHPRA (The Australian Health Professionals Regulation Agency). Our clinical psychologists Dr Emma Agnew, Dr Matthew Gerathy, Sabrina Choo, Simon Turmanis, Jodie Gibson, Ashley Lam & Maneesha Singh all hold a Masters or Doctorate of Clinical Psychology. Additionally, all of our Psychologists undertake continuing professional development to ensure they are able to provide you with the latest, most effective treatment approaches in CBT, ACT, CFT, DBT, Schema Therapy, MBCBT, and MI.

You can read more about each of our individual Psychologists,Simon Turmanis,Mark Podesta, Dr Matthew Gerathy, Maneesha Singh, Jodie Gibson, Tom Xia, Dr Emma Agnew, Edwina Wong, Suzanne Carmichael, Stephanie Cook & Sabrina Choo & Samira Wiemer & Ashley Lam their qualifications, experience, training and models of therapy they continue their professional development, supervision and training in.