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Counselling Staff

It's all about a healthier community

Wavecare has been providing support to people in the City of Monash for over 40 years, helping those in need of assistance due to illness, grief & loss, abuse, anxiety, depression, trauma, homelessness, crisis, misfortune, disability, relationship issues and isolation.

Our team is comprised of genuinely gifted and caring minds

Psychologist

Elizabeth Beyer

Elizabeth is a registered generalist psychologist. Elizabeth has experience working in education and community health with families and individuals who have mental health concerns. Elizabeth has worked with a diverse range of ages and cultures including First Nations people.

Elizabeth has experience working in education and community health with families and individuals who have mental health concerns. . Elizabeth has a Masters in Professional Psychology and has an Honours Degree in Psychology and a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in psychology and philosophy. Elizabeth has worked with a diverse range of ages and cultures including First Nations people. Elizabeth has worked with a diverse range of ages and cultures including First Nations people. Elizabeth brings to her work a sense of humanity and understanding and aims to build a solid therapeutic relationship which provides the foundation for the therapeutic process. Elizabeth provides a safe space for clients to discuss their concerns through a non-judgemental, strength and values-based approach.Elizabeth works within the evidenced based frameworks of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and utilises motivational interviewing techniques to assist with the change process. Elizabeth has experience working with stress, anxiety, depression, grief, and relationship concerns.
Psychologist

Catherine Gooden

An experienced Psychologist with a Master of Psychology (Education and Development) from Monash University, Catherine is an asset to the Wavecare team.

An experienced Psychologist with a Master of Psychology (Education and Development) from Monash University, Catherine is an asset to the Wavecare team. Working with children, adolescents and adults, Catherine is passionate about supporting people of all ages and their families work through issues together. This is supported by Catherine’s several years of experience providing counselling services in primary and secondary education under Medicare’s Better Access to Mental Health.
Catherine’s areas of interest include helping children with developmental challenges, emotional regulation, anxiety, depression and adjustment to family separation/ divorce and bereavement. Catherine also has experience working through these issues with adults in private practice, primarily covering anxiety, depression, grief and trauma.
Catherine prides herself on focusing on the individual needs of the client, utilising evidence-based practice including behaviour management, social skills, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, mindfulness and play therapy.
Psychologist

Kat Howting

Kat (she/her) has a warm, empathic, client centred approach. She values individual differences and open mindedness and brings a non-judgmental perspective to her work.

Kat (she/her) has a warm, empathic, client centred approach. She values individual differences and open mindedness and brings a non-judgmental perspective to her work. Kat has experience with clients across the lifespan and from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, having worked within community, private practise and forensic settings. She has also worked closely with CALD & Queer communities within community clinics.

Kat uses evidence-based intervention and aims to brings modality integration and flexibility to her practice. She has training and experience in CBT, ACT, EFT, Motivational Interviewing and Mindfulness techniques & practices trauma informed therapy.

Psychologist and Counsellor

Parveen (Pari) Balsara-Mistry

Pari is a Psychologist and a Registered Counsellor has completed a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Post-Graduate Diploma of Psychology, Masters of Counselling and Masters of Professional Psychology.

Pari is a Psychologist Registered Counsellor and has completed a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Post-Graduate Diploma of Psychology, Masters of Counselling and Masters of Professional Psychology. She is registered with the Australian Counselling Association and an Member of the Australian Psychological Society. She is also the Coordinator of Glencare, a senior support program that has been operating within the City of Monash for over 40 years.

Pari enjoys working with all age groups and has a special interest in working with clients who present with trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. She also has extensive experience in working with adults suffering from disability. Pari’s style of intervention is eclectic, yet evidence-based and includes Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Person-Centred Therapy.Along with counselling, Pari helps facilitate a student supervision program that is offered at Wavecare.

As the Coordinator of Glencare, Pari adopts a client-centred approach to add depth and meaning to the program in order to support the needs of the elderly within the community.

Pari has previously worked as a volunteer Counsellor and support worker at Wavelink Inc (Neighbourhood house for adults with disability) and Brentwood Secondary College.

Psychologist

Hiromi Kawahara

Having lived, educated and worked in Japan, UK and Australia, Hiromi is a globally experienced and registered AHPRA Psychologist who speaks both English and Japanese.

Having lived, educated and worked in Japan, UK and Australia, Hiromi is a globally experienced and registered AHPRA Psychologist who speaks both English and Japanese. Hiromi has primarily worked in Melbourne for private practices, in the tertiary education sector and in primary schools since 2006.
As a generalist, her clientele is broad and includes everyone from 5-year-old children to retired persons in their 70’s, as well as international students and working holiday makers, all with diverse cultural backgrounds. Hiromi deals with a range of issues such as depression, anxiety, relationship matters, identify, adjustment and spiritual quest.
Hiromi’s primary therapeutic framework is not only Cognitive Behavioural Therapy but also Interpersonal Counselling and Acceptance & Commitment Therapy when appropriate. In addition, Hiromi’s strength lies in flexibility for application of these empirical therapeutic frameworks, not excluding her skills and knowledge gained from Transactional Analysis. As always, her goal is to gain the best therapeutic outcome for her clients.
Hiromi is also skilled in conducting various standardised psychological assessments, and reporting these results to relevant bodies.
Counsellor

Dianne Mackay

Dianne holds a master's degree in counselling from Monash University, specialising in trauma-informed care and cognitive behavioural therapy.

Dianne holds a Master's degree in Counselling from Monash University, specialising in trauma-informed care and cognitive behavioural therapy. With passion for helping others, she integrates evidence-based practices, a client-centered approach and empathetic understanding to support and empower clients in their journey towards mental wellness, self-discovery, healing and growth.
Psychologist

Poly Cheng-Han Yang

Poly has worked in community, educational and private settings with individuals from all age groups with a variety of presenting issues including anxiety, depression, anger management, adjustment issues, behaviour issues, social skills, and general life stress.

Qualifications:
Master of Professional Psychology, Monash University
Graduate Diploma of Professional Psychology, Monash University
Bachelor of Education in Psychology and Counselling, University of Taipei
Experience:
Poly has worked in community, educational and private settings with individuals from all age groups with a variety of presenting issues including anxiety, depression, anger management, adjustment issues, behaviour issues, social skills, and general life stress. Apart from working experience in Australia, in Taiwan Poly has also worked in the field of mental health. Due to this cross-cultural experience, Poly is enthusiastic in assisting clients from culturally or linguistically diverse backgrounds with their mental health and wellbeing issue.
Approach:
Poly is a multilingual speaker, and he provides service in English, Chinese and Taiwanese. He is flexible with his approach. He believes in the idea that clients are the expert of themselves, and therefore it's essential to understand the presenting issue from the client's perspective and then tailor the intervention according to the client's need. This person-centred value allows Poly to be fully aware of how our cultural backgrounds can influence our thinking and behaviour, and the impacts these cultural factors on our lives.
Poly uses a range of evidence-based approaches, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Motivational Interviewing, Applied Behaviour Analysis, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and play therapy (Sandplay).
楊承翰 心理師
學歷: 蒙納士大學 心理學碩士 Master of Professional Psychology
蒙納士大學 心理學研究生文憑Graduate Diploma of Professional Psychology
臺北市立大學 心理與諮商學士Bachelor of Education in Psychology and Counselling

經歷: 承翰擁有在社區機構,教育體系和諮商所等機構中工作的經驗,其服務的對象跨越各個年齡層,協助的心理健康議題包括:焦慮,憂鬱,情緒管理,生活調適,行為問題,社交技能和一般生活壓力。 除了在澳大利亞的工作經驗之外,在台灣承翰也從事心理健康領域的工作。 由於這種跨文化的經驗,讓承翰想幫助來自不同文化或語言背景的人們解決心理健康和相關的問題。

治療方法: 承翰提供英語,中文和臺語的心理諮商服務。他相信每位個案都是最了解自己的,因此每個人都是自己生活的專家,因此他認為從個案的角度去理解問題與挑戰,然後根據個案的需求來量身定制治療方法是極為重要的。這種人本的價值使承翰能夠充分了解文化背景是如何影響我們的思想及行為,以及這些文化因素對我們心理健康的影響。

承翰運用一系列的實證心理諮商方法來幫助個案,其諮商方法包括接受和承諾療法(ACT),動機式晤談(Motivational Interviewing),應用行為分析 (ABA),認知行為療法(CBT)和遊戲治療(Sandplay)。 承翰是一名澳洲註冊心理師,也是澳洲心理學會APS的成員。

Psychologist

Yvonne Schroder

Yvonne is our senior psychologist and has an extensive background in social work and psychology, allowing her to offer a premium, well rounded service to our clients.

In her early years of work, Yvonne trained in the fields of Mental Health, having worked at Larundal Psychiatric Hospital, Bundoora Repatriation Psychiatric Hospital, Mental Health Services Repat and at the Children’s Courts Psychiatric Clinic. From here, Yvonne continued her studies with three years’ family therapy training as well as three years’ training with Relationships Australia in Couples Therapy.
Yvonne has a Graduate Diploma in Mental Health Science, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and a part 1 Graduate Diploma in Hypnosis (which she is yet to complete). Yvonne’s specialty focus is relationship therapy/ counselling; however, she has extensive skills in CBT and interpersonal psychotherapy that enable her to work effectively with a broad range of issues.
In addition to practice, Yvonne has additional training in clinical practice supervision and therefore takes a primary role in overseeing and providing clinical supervision of Wavecare counsellors.
Social Worker

Ray Paterson

Raymond Paterson's career spans over 30 years in the mental health field including working with couples, men's mental health and addiction.

Raymond Paterson has recently stepped back from his role as CEO of Wavecare. Raymond's career spans over 30 years in the mental health field including working with couples, men's mental health and addiction. He has been a social worker, an educator, a program manager, a CEO, a tutor and now runs his own private counselling practice.

Ray has also trained and worked in the areas of workplace coaching and critical stress management, and joins the Wavecare team as a clinical supervisor of counsellors and students.

Outside of work, Ray has a love of music and spend his spare time playing in a band with friends.

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