Angie McLaughlin MSc LMFT Reg Psycol. PSI
I see counselling/therapy as collaboration between the counsellor and the client. Clients know themselves better than anyone else but run into trouble at times and need a bit of help finding their way through. I have training and experience and so we put our minds together to come up with the best way to help them.
I hold a Marriage, Family and Child Therapist license from California. I completed my undergraduate degree in Psychology at Trinity and hold a Masters in Marriage, Family and Child Counselling from San Francisco State University. I am a registered psychologist of the Psychological Society of Ireland.
I worked for many years in Community Mental Health agencies in San Francisco providing individual and group therapy to people with severe psychiatric disorders, as well as working in a child abuse prevention centre and university campus. On returning to Ireland I was Head of Therapy for CARI, an organisation who offers counselling to children and their families affected by Child Sexual Abuse and also as a family therapist at The Clanwilliam Institute.
My training as a family therapist has helped me see people not just as individuals but as part of a bigger community involving their families, friends and other relationships in their lives as well as being affected by the time and culture that they have grown up in. Childhood experiences are very important in forming the way that we see things as adults. Sometimes we develop ways of being as we grow up that can turn into difficulties in our adult lives.
I work with clients using a variety of methods including talking, writing, art and the use of imagery to help change behaviours and beliefs that are no longer working for them. I try to be creative and flexible when working with students to provide counselling that best suit their individual needs. Sometimes the work is about gaining insight and other times it is about learning practical techniques to cope. I also believe in being proactive and developing long term life changes to gain self knowledge and an ability to manage the difficulties that life throws at us all.