What really matters is human to human connection

Life doesn’t always go in straight lines – we all experience bumps and challenges along the way.  From wellbeing science Michelle provides the tools to navigate when problems and challenges become too much, join the dots, and to expand our abilities to grow. 

Michelle’s depth of knowledge and experience enables her to work with her clients across a wide range of issues, and it is her ability to make sense of these, to truly get to the heart of the issue, and to work on resolving these issues in a transformative way.  

Michelle supports her clients to gain insight and to reflect, to understand themselves at a deeper level, and to work skillfully with their emotions to gain inner renewal and resourcefulness. This involves discovering what matters, what changes are needed and how to move forward in life. With science-informed and evidence based practice she applies this to each situation.

Michelle’s areas of expertise include:

• Reflective inquiry to work on and beyond symptom alleviation to understand the emotional and relational underpinnings to achieve meaningful and long-lasting change and sense of inner authority.
• Working with mood difficulties, including anxiety, low mood, personality difficulties, obsessions and compulsions, repetitive thoughts, difficult emotions and problematic behaviours.
• Recovering from stressful-life events and trauma, both historical and recent, including early relational stress and trauma.
• Adjustment to significant life events, such as relationship and family changes, fertility challenges, experiencing an accident or illness, and grief.
• Exploring relationships, including intimacy and communication in relationships, dating, parenting, and wider family relationships, both currently and over the lifespan.  Please note Michelle does not offer couples therapy.
• Navigating changes in work, stress and professional burnout.
• Personal identity, gender exploration, and sexuality
• Supporting young people and adults with neurodiversity, ADHD and ASD related to their emotional and social functioning. Please note, formal ADHD or ASD assessments not offered.
• Personal reflection on self and stage in life, to gain clarity, develop strengths, to stay well and make changes where necessary.

Michelle has worked for many years with adolescents, adults and families providing specialist therapeutic services to overcome complex difficulties with eating and body image concerns. This includes complex restrictive eating disorders, binge eating, mindless and habitual eating, overeating and eating to manage emotions.

Michelle is interested in understanding how eating and bodies have become complicated and to understand what role eating plays in one’s internal and interpersonal world.   Exploring how eating difficulties and weight management difficulties are linked to our life as a whole, both currently and historically is crucial.  Michelle works on all the factors that contribute to long-term change and success.

Michelle has worked with young people and adults experiencing eating difficulties both as a senior clinician and researcher for Auckland Health Board’s Specialist Eating Disorder Service and in her private practice.  This includes complex restrictive eating disorders, binge eating, overeating and eating to manage emotions, and body image concerns.

Michelle is associated with Shelly Beach Practice where her clients make use of other services, including Specialist Dietitians and Specialist Therapists.

Taking time to reflect on issues from both the personal and the work context is important in protecting wellbeing and maintaining and improving personal and professional performance.  Michelle provides an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect in a real way, and a safe context to address issues of relevance to our personal and work lives. 

This can range from individuals wanting a reflective space to learn more about themselves and how they can have a greater impact in work and life, to those who are experiencing significant difficulties, such as burnout.   This is a space to be real and explore in a way that is often difficult or impossible to do in everyday life.  Coming to grips with why and how we operate can have substantial impacts on our work life, our personal life and all the human interactions that happen in-between. 

Professional success and leadership success requires that we protect and invest in our emotional health in order to be present and connected with our self, with others, and our work in the world.  This is critical for improving professional effectiveness and personal wellbeing and in maintaining energy both at work and at home.  Investing in this can also have huge payoff for the teams that we lead and the success of the organisation as a whole. 

Michelle provides professional supervision services to her colleagues, other health clinicians, those in the professional services, human resource managers and personnel to support and guide them in their work with others.  Michelle also offers team supervision and coaching.

Working longer and harder isn’t good for business and isn’t good for ourselves and others. Therefore, building the life we want to be happy and effective at work, and energetic at home is a key priority.  Today’s workplace is very demanding, so Michelle and her associates help develop the skills and capability to overcome challenges at work and in everyday life. So that teams and leaders can do great work and live awesome lives.

In particular, Michelle enables people to work skilfully with emotions, reduce stress and exhaustion, and to experience joy, satisfaction and success.  This creates individuals and leaders that are emotionally robust and teams that are psychologically safe and fun to be a part of.   Highly engaged and emotionally intelligent teams do their best work and want to stick around.

Michelle also assists and supports people who have been unwell back to performance, and help to create the potential for increased effectiveness and happiness.