10 Questions with Clarissa Mosley

• What led you to choose psychotherapy or counselling as a profession?

• I was always that person that people opened up to. I would be talking with someone and then they would say "you know, you are the first person I have ever told that to."
  I went to university in my early 20's to do psychology but it was all 'rats and stats' in those days so I ended up completing my first degree with a major in philosophy; the study life, meaning and the nature of the mind.
  My parallel passion was natural medicine. I studied nutrition and natural therapies and started working in a gym and it was here that I came to see the correlation between a person's physical condition and their psychology. I needed to return to psychology. Serendipitously I found a flyer for Gestalt training and I embarked on a rigorous 3 years of experiential training. Gestalt provided me with the most amazing tools to use in practice and in life. I opened the Hill Gestalt Clinic in 1999 and started to help women suffering from eating disorders and their own abusive childhood relationships. I also had children of my own and learnt how to be a good parent despite my poor early modeling. Along the way I decided to return to University and suffer the rats and stats so my clients could gain access to medicare and I could attain further professional affiliation.
  I am still fascinated with, and far more educated in, nutrition and how it affects our psychology. While I don't profess to be anything but a novice in this area I do know a whole lot more than I did 4 years ago when I first discovered how powerfully a biochemical imbalance can affect individual psychology.

• Which philosophical approaches have influenced your professional/personal development?

• My Gestalt trainer, Anna Bernet, was trained by Jorge Rosner (a disciple of Fritz Perls himself). Anna opened and ran the first Australian Gestalt training under Jorge's guidance. Strongly influenced by the Diamond Essence Approach as instructed by A.H.Almaas she also introduced me to the Enneagram. I have attended both SAT (Seekers After Truth) 1 and 2 with Claudio Naranjo teacher of the Enneagram of types who was instructed by Oscar Ichazo who initially received the teachings.
  Gestalt, as it was taught by Anna (who I am fortunate enough to still receive supervision from) is a gentle and deeply transformative therapy. Gestalt is far more than a set of techniques, I have yet to find a more thorough and encompassing theory of human-beingness in any other system I have studied. When applied with wisdom and sensitivity and approached whole-heartedly and with an honest intention to develop Gestalt Therapy can produce true authentic human growth.

• Which particular aspects of health or the human journey are you interested in?

• All of it. I find people to be the most interesting things on earth, especially their minds and brains. I really love finding causes while also appreciating the larger picture and allowing the fact that sometimes things just are.
  I have a long background and strong grounding in psychotherapy, but my new found passion is neuroscience and interactions with nutrition. So it's really how health and the human journey interact that fascinates me still, but now I know so much more about it.
  When I first studied psychology at university (way back in 1990) we knew that some cases of depression involved a neurotransmitter imbalance, but schizophrenia was still a mystery. Since the human genome project and developments in neuroscience our knowledge has increased immensely. I believe we are on the edge of a paradigm shift in the way we view and treat mental illness.
  My recent interest in how biochemical imbalances can dramatically influence well being to the point of manifesting in psychological or behavioral (particularly in children) disorders now augments my practice. I would love to develop it further in helping parents who trammel many different paths to find solutions to their children's behaviour, find those solutions faster, more effectively and without pathologising their child or parenting methods in the process.

• What method/s do you use?

• Gestalt therapy underlies my basic approach to human development. However I have added much along the way and it really depends on what people are presenting with.
  With couples I have received training in PACT - The Psychobiological Approach to Couples Therapy. Very briefly, PACT looks at how early attachment patterns recur in adult relationships and how differences in the way people manage their emotions can cause miscommunications. Thats a very very basic description.
  With individual work it depends on the presenting problem, the time and other factors, but even when using counselling and CBT for short term work I would also use principles of Gestalt therapy.
  I also use a lot of education, I am a natural sharer of knowledge and believe people should know as much as possible about whatever might help them.
  To help parents I look at many areas. Their current relationship, their family of origin issues, the home environment, their hopes and fears around parenting. If it is regarding a behaviour issue with their child I could work with how they discipline, or don't. What their child does that is of concern, diet and other influences.
  I would also screen for possible bio-chemical imbalances in a child or any adult I am treating where I feel it could be contributing to their presenting issues.

• When do you think the client will start to feel that progress is being made?

• Many people feel enormous relief after the first session, just being able to talk to someone who is interested in them and their well being can really take the edge off. From there it can follow various patterns. Some steadily improve, some go two steps forward and one step backwards.
  The other thing to know is that progress can be subtle and often attributed to other things. For example, a couple report on their 3rd or 4th session that they haven't been arguing much, but attribute it to having 'too much else going on', or, 'nothing to argue about'. What people often don't realise is that change that starts in session continues to happen outside the session and this is good and meant to happen, but the source of change becomes less obvious.
  As a broad rule, getting all the information and forming a therapeutic alliance can take about 1-3 sessions, then the 'work' should begin and how long that take depends on how long it has lasted and how bad things were. If you are not feeling progress within 4-6 sessions you should mention this.

• How has therapy made you a better person?

• How hasn't therapy made me a better person? Who I am today is directly attributable to therapy; good guidance delivered by different people at the right time (when the student is ready..) and my own commitment to personal growth in general, which, by the way, will never end.
  I don't think you should practice what you haven't experienced. No one is perfect, no one had the ideal start. People who are attracted to this field are for a reason so it is imperative that they work out that reason with someone more experienced, otherwise they will never know what is their stuff and what is their clients. It is very important to have a therapist who has done their own work, and is in regular supervision (barring very old experienced therapists of course). Therapy is the most unique, delicate and vulnerable situation to put yourself in, but relationships are what hurt us and relationships are what heal us.

• What do you like most about being a therapist?

• Helping people. Sorting out the root issues, seeing the things that others can't. Being a good detective. Saying the right things at the right time that hit the spot. Leading others to ah-ha moments. Using my insight and intuition. Feeling healing happen. Hearing clients report positive changes in their lives. Seeing couples get things back on track. Helping people grow and heal from past wounds. Leading them toward the right treatments. Having a light joyful moment.

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

• Yes, of course I have bad days, well, I used to have bad days, now I know about the right supplements my bad days seldom make it past lunch time. I have also done a lot of my own work to get me to a point where I am feeling very balanced and good about life most of the time. but of course life is not perfect and things happen. If I have a problem that endures, I to will seek help. Maintaining my own balance and psychological health is as important as my physical health and wellbeing, without it, I am no good to anyone.

• What do you think is the most significant problem we face, in the world today?

• I think the problems of the world boil down to a lack of responsibility, a desperation for power coupled with a total disregard for the wellbeing of others. It's all about getting more, more money, more things, more land, etc. and tramping over others, (or killing them) to get it. If everyone was taught self-responsibility for their own actions and belief systems then the dreadful things that happen couldn't (save exceptions).
  En-masse we couldn't act out of fear and lack, project that on to other people (or countries/races) and then attack them. If corporations really had to take responsibility for their effects on people, the economy, the food chain, the environment the world would be a better place. Even if the media took more responsibility in the way they presented news, without sensationalising, demonising and amping up what we are meant to hear, not what we could. On a personal level if people took responsibility for their effect on others, their children, their partners, their colleagues instead of projecting and blaming, everyone's lives would be less conflictual and stressful.

• Can you share the name of a book, film, song, event or work of art that inspires you?

• I tend not to have time to read fiction with all the non-fiction texts and information I read, nor do I have time to watch movies, although the lego movie did tickle me and I thought The Secret Life of Walter Mitty had great cinematography. I am musically illiterate and don't look at art much. What does blow my hair back, however, is images of brains and information on how they work. The amount of knowledge we now have (which still is nowhere enough) about the workings of the human mind inspires me.