What is Psychology?
Psychology supports your mental health and wellbeing by helping you understand what you’re experiencing and build practical strategies for everyday life. It can help with things like managing stress, anxiety, low mood, trauma impacts, emotional regulation, motivation, routines, relationships, and confidence — in a way that’s tailored to your goals and what matters to you.
Our psychologists work with people whose disability affects how they think, feel, cope and connect with others. That covers a lot of ground. Some people come to us because anxiety has shrunk their world down to the house. Some are grieving, or angry, or stuck. Some need an assessment so the right supports can be funded. Some have been through services before and found the therapy did not account for their disability at all.
We start by working out what is actually getting in the way, then build strategies you can use in real life. Not just in the session.
Everyone on our psychology team is registered with AHPRA. We work with children, young people and adults, and with the family, carers and support workers around them, because strategies stick better when everyone is using them.
How Psychology can help
- Anxiety, panic, worry and avoidance
- Low mood, grief and loss
- Emotional regulation, frustration and distress
- Trauma and its effects on daily life
- Sleep, routine and motivation
- Confidence, self-esteem and decision making
- Relationships, social skills and conflict
- Adjusting to change, including diagnosis, moving house, leaving school or losing a support
- Behaviours that put a person or others at risk, alongside our behaviour support team
Approaches we use include cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, psychoeducation, mindfulness-based approaches, and behavioural and skills-based work.
We adapt the approach to the person, including for people with intellectual disability, autism, communication differences and cognitive impairment. Standard talk therapy is not the only tool, and for some people it is the wrong one.
Working with the rest of your team
Psychology at YesAbility sits alongside Positive Behaviour Support, Occupational Therapy, Early Intervention and Counselling, all under one roof.
That means a psychologist and a behaviour support practitioner can work on the same goals without you having to broker it, chase two sets of notes, or explain your history twice. Where a behaviour support plan is in place, our psychologists can work on the emotional and cognitive drivers behind the behaviour while the plan handles environment and response.
