10 Questions with Elle Stube

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

• My enquiry into the human experience has been the central theme around which my life has revolved. It has resulted in a very rich journey, during which I have explored being human through many lenses.
  
  Prior to becoming a psychotherapist, I trained in and worked as a hotelier; performing artist; a radio broadcaster; a freelance writer; and as a social change communications expert. I was fortunate to experience a plethora of jobs, titles, roles and professional development both in Australia and abroad.
  
  During that time, I was simultaneously engaged in an extensive personal process - exploring a wide range of modalities; and practicing Zen Buddhism and mindfulness in both Australia and the US.
  
  When I eventually encountered contemporary somatic psychotherapy, it was a light bulb moment - in which I finally felt I had found a way of understanding myself and others that made radical and profound sense.
  
  My formal training as a somatic psychotherapist was the culmination of three decades of self development. It brought together all that I had studied, learned and experienced during that time, under a single cohesive clinical paradigm at the cutting edge of international best practice.
  
  Rather than my 'choosing psychotherapy', it feels far more as though psychotherapy chose me.
  
  

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

• The single most important philosophy in my work, is the cutting edge understanding that contrary to the medical approach to mental health, human beings experiencing suffering are not 'sick', or 'mentally ill'.
  
  Instead, a contemporary approach holds that 'mental health issues' are in fact a direct expression of that person's experience in life - the understandable result of the mental, physical and relational experiences that have informed that person's development.
  
  Where a medical approach to mental health asks "what is wrong with you?", a contemporary approach explores "what happened to you?"
  
  Applying this philosophy in therapy, means that rather than diagnosing or labelling the issues my clients struggle with, our work together seeks to understand the client in their entirety and at the deepest possible level.
  
  Contemporary psychotherapy understands that whilst 'mental health issues' can be scary, upsetting, challenging, destabilising, repetitive, dangerous and disruptive to us - they do not mean we are 'broken'. Instead, we understand that these painful states simply reveal the fundamental vulnerability of being human; and the degree to which we all need care, empathy, holding and understanding in order to heal, grow and thrive.
  
  I consider my work with clients both a serious commitment and a profound honour. Supporting them along their unique life path, to fulfil their human potential, is a privilege beyond words.
  
  

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

• My interest is in a wholistic understanding of the human experience, using the very latest contemporary clinical insights, psychological theories and neuro-scientific understanding of what it means to be human. Rather than reduce humans to their separate parts, my interest is in understanding how those parts are in fact all interconnected and interrelated. And further, how every single human being is having an entirely unique and specific subjective experience - an experience to be respected and at all times honoured.
  
  In so doing, my aim is always to provide the client with a new experience of wholeness - acknowledging, embracing and over time, integrating parts of them that they have felt were unhelpful, unaccessible, unconscious or downright unacceptable. In this way, I am interested in restoring people to the fullness of their human potential and to enjoy the full expression of their unique human experience.
  
  There is no doubt therefore that my area of specialty is in understanding and treating issues that have occurred in a person's early development. Issues that get in the way of achieving our human potential and full expression of our unique human experience.
  
  Research is clear, that our earliest experiences as infants and children, directly inform who will go on to become. In particular, our earliest relational experiences go on to powerfully influence our mental, physical and relational life. That is to say, that what happens to us in relationship with our caregivers and other influential childhood figures, will go on to dictate the quality of our adult life. A profound insight that tragically has yet to gain widespread understanding, yet underpins many of what are considered 'mental health issues'.
  
  In my experience, when we remain unconscious of the experiences that have formed us, our life can feel out of control - like it is happening to us and we are not resourced to deal with it. This can cause enormous suffering, overwhelm, constant crises, breakdowns, relationship issues, addiction, chronic health issues, disconnection, purposelessness, or meaninglessness. Over time, cycling through these painful and exhausting states can leave us at a loss as to why we are the way we are; or whether there is anything that we can do about it.
  
  We may try to cope by being busy, staying distracted, spending money, using drugs and alcohol, over working, constantly changing jobs, relationships, houses or otherwise remaining overstimulated. Alternatively, we may find ourselves descending into despair, depression, stuckness, numbness, helplessness and a loss of motivation. We may even oscillate between the two.
  
  I am passionate about supporting my clients to make sense of themselves and their experience, using the latest insights into human development - what our human needs are in various stages of development and what happens when those needs are not met. In beginning to understand themselves in new and compassionate ways, clients are then able to begin to integrate and resolve the issues that have long informed their struggles. The things that have remained below the surface of their awareness, yet powerfully determining their every day experience.
  
  Together, we pay attention to and explore their emotional, physical, relational, spiritual/existential experience. Noticing what is going on beneath the surface story. Paying attention to all aspects of themselves and building new self awareness, self understanding and self regulation.
  
  Over time, the client develops new levels of resilience, capacity, presence and groundedness on which, at last, they can experience a solid foundation on which they can continue to build the life they had always yearned for.
  

• What method/s do you use?

• 'Methods' is a term that does not sit comfortably with a contemporary psychotherapeutic approach - for the way it implies that therapy is a process of 'doing things to people'.
  
  Instead, contemporary psychotherapy is about 'building connection with people' - in order that their experience can be deeply understood and from there, true transformation can occur.
  
  Recent research shows that the single most important aspect of any therapy, is the quality of the relationship between the therapist and the client. The outcome of any mental health treatment is entirely dependent on the degree to which the client feels connected to the therapist.
  
  To that end, the therapeutic relationship lies at the centre of my work. Rather than work in a one directional approach like most mental health treatments, I use a 'two person psychological approach' in which the client and I work together to co-create the conditions in which healing and transformation are possible.
  
  Drawing on the very latest insights in neuroscience and psychological theory, I use a 'complex dynamic systems' approach that includes all aspects of a client's experience - mental, physical, relational and spiritual/existential.
  

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

• Many clients feel some sense of relief in their very first therapy session with me.
  
  Often, they have struggled for a very long time; have felt 'stuck'; 'broken'; 'beyond repair'; or 'a lost cause' - so even a small shift in their experience can be profound and provide a much needed sense of hope.
  
  True and lasting change however, takes time. For that change to be undertaken safely and at depth, therapy can by necessity be a long, slow process. This is based on the contemporary understanding of how humans develop and thus, how change in humans takes place.
  
  My aim in the work is to provide the conditions in which change naturally occurs - not in forced superficial ways, but at the deepest organismic level. Clients experience this change in many different ways, but often describe it as feeling they are changing "from the inside out".
  
  
  
  
  

• Do you ever have 'bad hair' days?

• Of course. 'Bad hair days' are part of being human!

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

• Disconnection.
  
  As humans we are wired for connection. Every aspect of our health and wellbeing depends on feeling connected to others and to our Self. Yet so much of modern life results in our being more and more disconnected from others and from our Selves.
  
  We now know that many mental and physical health issues have their roots in disconnection.
  
  I am a passionate advocate for the vital relational needs of humans and believe that quality human-to-human connection is the single most important need of our time.