Frequently Asked Questions

At this stage, Medicare does not provide the opportunity for individuals to access services provided by professional mental health counsellors through the ‘Better Access Program’ . The Australian Counselling Association is working hard to change this.  To compensate for this, we  provide discounted rates for veterans, pensioners, students and other concessions  Please see information contained in Services .

You do not need to have a referral to access mental health counselling services at AWC. The advantage of this is that you can make an appointment directly with us, and there will be no information left on your medical file which might affect your life insurance and future employment.

Psychologists have specialised training in diagnosis and assessment, and they typically work with people who have more serious mental health issues by utilising a more medical framework. Professional counsellors  are trained to use the same evidence based approaches as psychologists but rather than favouring psychological testing to inform strategies for therapy, counsellors use a person-centred approach involving getting to know their clients by listening to them and finding out what their goals are. Unlike psychologists, they do not diagnose, but instead support clients with mild to moderate symptoms which are negatively impacting their mental health. 

There is no precise answer to this question because it is dependent on various factors, such as the type of goals you want to achieve as well as how many goals you bring to counselling. It is most beneficial when you stay in it long enough to learn how to cope with and solve the difficulties that brought you to counseling in the first place. The decision is ultimately yours.

It is important that you are not in counselling for any longer than necessary. When this happens, treatment loses its effectiveness, and there is a risk of  growing dependent on the counsellor. A tentative treatment plan will be discussed early on, aiming  to strike the correct balance of making sure that you have learnt enough to continue making progress on your own and wil be less likely to experience the same issues again. 

Firstly, any issue that is causing you to feel anger, sadness, emptiness, anxiety, frustration, hopelessness, despair, loneliness, a lack of self worth, a lack of direction and more, can be discussed in counselling sessions. No issue is too small. Secondly, the role of a professional counsellor is to listen deeply, empathetically and without judgement. They will never consider you or your issue to be  “silly”. They want to help and to do that they have various tools and strategies that they can offer which can help you rediscover your own strengths to make the changes you need to restore your mental well-being.