Northern Beaches Counsellor & Eating Disorder Therapist

JODIE GALE: SOUL-CENTRED PSYCHOTHERAPIST, THERAPEUTIC COUNSELLOR & COACH + TRAUMA & EATING DISORDER THERAPIST ON THE NORTHERN BEACHES OF SYDNEY & ONLINE

I am a Master’s Qualified, PACFA Registered Clinical Psychotherapist®, Therapeutic Counsellor, Coach + Trauma & Disordered Eating Therapist. I am also the founder of TraumaWarriors.Online: A Healing, Self-Development & Post-Traumatic Growth Centre for Women, Online.

For most of my adult life I lived in London where I practised counselling and psychotherapy, alongside working for charities, creative companies and corporate organisations. In 2006, after many travels and adventures, I returned home to the Northern Beaches in Sydney where I now balance being a stay-at-home mum to two children and run a busy part-time private psychotherapy, counselling, coaching and clinical supervision practice.

As one of Australia’s leading specialists in women’s emotional, psychological and spiritual health and well-being, I have 20 years’ experience in the field of psychology. My work is featured in global counselling and psychotherapy blogs, psychotherapy journals, YES!, SHE KNOWS, CLEO Australia, Australian WellBeing, Australian Yoga Journal, MammaMia, BodyMatters, Australia Counselling, The Manly Daily, CAPA Quarterly, ABC & 2UE Radio, About.com, The World of Psychology and PsychCentral.

MY TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY

Therapy works! I know this not only through watching 100s of women transform their lives but also through my own transformation. My journey as a therapist and counsellor began after having a peak experience swimming with wild dolphins in Ireland. This led to a deep exploration of my inner and outer life.

After many workshops and retreats for personal, psychological and spiritual development, I embarked on my own journey through weekly, long-term, depth psychotherapy where I recovered from early childhood interpersonal trauma, addiction and an eating disorder.

Finding a psychosynthesis psychotherapist who showed me unconditional love, empathy and acceptance, guided me in such a way that I was able to make a series of healthy choices, heal myself, my relationships and turn my unhappy life around.

WORKING WITH WOMEN

Each woman has her own individual story. I respect, value and honour that story.

I work with women from diverse backgrounds, careers, ages, races and cultures. The women I see in therapy come for a variety of reasons; some with day-to-day concerns, and others who are deeply wounded and traumatised.

Although I work with all aspects of women’s health and well-being, I have a particular interest in inner child work in the following areas:

Helping women to build a strong sense of self and self-worth
Helping women to heal from their past physical, emotional, mental, relational, sexual and spiritual abuse, concerns and trauma
Helping women navigate difficult mother/daughter and/or father daughter relationships
Helping women to recover from eating disorders, disordered eating and other food, weight, excessive exercise and body image concerns

DISORDERED EATING, EATING DISORDER & EATING PSYCHOLOGY COACHING EXPERIENCE

I was the first qualified psychotherapist in Australia certified as an Eating Disorder Coach with the Carolyn Costin Institute (USA) and as a Dynamic Eating Psychology and Mind Body Nutrition Coach through the Institute for the Psychology of Eating (USA). I am an approved Australian Health at Every Size therapist as well as a silver level ACFED practitioner – trained to work with eating disorders and the non-diet approach for weight concerns. I have been trained and supervised by Monte Nido Founder & Author of the 8 Keys to Eating Disorder Recovery, Carolyn Costin and Dr Anita Johnston, author of Eating in the Light of the Moon.

As the former Disordered Eating Program Consultant for Byron Private Holistic Treatment Centre in the Byron Hinterland, former Assistant Clinical Director at a Sydney eating disorder outpatient treatment centre (where I trained in the Dr Anita Johnston model), and a preferred service provider for South Pacific Private Rehab, I regularly work with women who have participated in their programs for addiction, anxiety, co-dependency, depression, eating disorders and early childhood complex trauma.

Previous experience includes working at Riverglen Psychiatry & Mental Health Unit, a yearlong stint volunteering at the Eating Disorder Foundation of NSW (now the The Butterfly Foundation) and psychiatry field education in the Eating Disorder and Feeding Unit at one of the world’s leading children’s hospitals; Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.

Since 2000, I have been writing about eating disorders and other food, weight and body image concerns from a soulful and psycho-spiritual perspective.

Women looking for recovery from body image problems, yo yo dieting, chronic dieting and eating disorders are drawn to my approach because I provide a non-pathologizing, holistic, forward thinking and soulful perspective for transformation and growth.

SOUL TRAUMA & EARLY CHILDHOOD WOUNDING EXPERIENCE

Early childhood emotional neglect, complex/developmental and soul trauma plunge our relational system into chaos and expose us to experiences of anxiety, unsafely and unbearable uncertainty in the world. The relationship we have as adults with our ‘self’ and others is often a reflection of these early experiences.

My core psychotherapy training laid the foundations for my experience in working with early childhood emotional neglect, developmental and complex trauma. I am a trauma sensitive therapist, trained to work at depth to recover the dissociated and deeply split off parts using subpersonality work, internal family systems (IFS) and other attachment, relational, somatic, psychodynamic and transpersonal based theories and techniques.

Post psychotherapy training, much of the last decade has involved me researching and training in the latest in attachment theory, disenfranchised grief, loss, the neuroscience of trauma and post traumatic growth. This has included participation in an 8-week Circle of Security (attachment focused) Parenting Course and conferences and workshops with attachment and trauma experts Dr. Dan Siegel, Dr. Dan Hughes, Allan Schore, Bessel van der Kolk, Stephen Porges, Kathy Kain & Pat Ogden.

In 2018, I was approved as a Trauma Support Practitioner through the Trauma Support Directory which has been developed with funding from the Australian Government as part of the National Redress Scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse, and which forms part of the psychological counselling component of the scheme.

My trauma work experience includes field education with the feminist organization Women’s Health NSW; the umbrella organisation for Leichardt Women’s Health Centre, Sydney Women’s Counselling, Waminda Aboriginal Health Centre and Rape & Domestic Violence Services Australia.

I have also worked with many women who are dealing with trauma associated with their adoption or foster-care history as well as those struggling with infertility, involuntary childlessness and women seeking alternative parenting paths, such as adoption or foster care.

All of this informs my inner child therapy work in private practice with women who have suffered from physical, emotional, mental, relational, sexual and spiritual abandonment, abuse and trauma.

WORKSHOPS, TRAINING & SUPERVISION WITH GLOBAL THOUGHT LEADERS

I regularly participate in clinical supervision and postgraduate training, workshops and conferences for professional, personal and spiritual development. I am committed to your psychological safety and well-being.

Some training and clinical supervision highlights with global leaders in the field of psychology and spirituality are:

Geneen Roth: Women, Food & God retreat (San Francisco)
Marion Woodman: BodySoul Rhythms® retreat on Conscious Femininity: somatic experiencing, body movement and dance, dream work, symbols and metaphors, mask making and fairy tales, journaling and silence (New York)
Carolyn Costin: clinical supervision and eating disorder coach training (USA)
Dr Anita Johnston: clinical supervision, the Dr Anita Johnston outpatient treatment model, and Eating in the Light of the Moon 20-week course (USA)
Brené Brown: The Power of Being Enough and the Gifts of Imperfection 6-week art journaling course (USA)
Oprah Winfrey: meeting and discussing a spiritual approach to eating disorders (Sydney)
Women’s retreats: Sacred women’s business: Indigenous wisdom, women’s ceremony and ritual, transpersonal and spiritual approaches to mother-daughter relationships and female lineage (UK & South of France).
Eco-Nature retreats with leaders in the ecotherapy field.

Since 1995, I have participated in experiential workshops and training in:

addiction
anger management
art therapy
assertiveness, self-esteem, self-worth and self-confidence for women
assisted conception and fertility awareness
attachment theory
body esteem and disordered eating
body-mind
boundaries
Byron Katie & the Work
Circle of Security parenting
conscious relations, intimacy and non-violent communication
depression and the dark night of the soul
dynamic eating psychology and mind-body nutrition
family constellations
family violence
Goddess psychology
grief and loss
happiness
menopause and midlife crisis
mindfulness
mother-daughter relationships
movement and dance therapy
nature therapy
pre/post-natal anxiety/depression
rape, incest & sexual assault
self-care
somatic psychotherapy
trauma and neuroscience
women’s health from a feminist perspective
women’s life cycles: child, maiden, mother, crone
yoga nidra (body relaxation).

WHAT QUALIFIES ME TO SUPPORT WOMEN ON THEIR JOURNEY?

I studied for eight years in soul-centred psychotherapy and counselling in London where classic psychotherapy training is extremely rigorous. Alongside the academic and clinical components, my course was experiential and I was required to attend my own individual and group psychotherapy for the duration of the training. My formal qualifications are:

Graduate Certificate in Professional Supervision (Clinical)
Masters in Psychotherapy (UK)
Diploma in Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy (UK)
Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling – now awarded as Psychotherapeutic Counselling (UK)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Circle (US)
Nature Based Therapy Coach Certification (UK)
Carolyn Costin Eating Disorder Coach Certification (USA)
Eating Psychology Coach Certification (USA)
Bachelor of Social Work (University of Sydney)
Foundations of Modern Psychology (University of London, UK)
Systemic Relationship and Family Counselling (Australia)
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Specialisation: CBT, MiCBT, ACT and DBT (Australia)
CertIV in Training and Assessment (Sydney)