• MARRIAGE COUNSELLING AND RELATIONSHIP COUNSELLING CAN BE USEFUL IN ENHANCING YOUR OWN STRETCHED PERSONAL RESOURCES : When Can Marriage Counselling and/or Relationship Counselling Be Helpful? "When life becomes stressful and it seems that you cannot work out a personal difficulty together or alone, a qualified counsellor may be able to help you work through your problems and give you an opportunity to better understand yourself, your relationships, values, and beliefs.  A counsellor can help you solve problems realistically so that you can work toward a more satisfying, productive, and fulfilling relationship and life."

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• The Counselling  and Marriage Counselling Process Can Help You:
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• Communicate better with the important people in your life
• Deal with addictive behaviours.
• Develop a more enriching and holistic spiritual life.
• Enhance personal growth/self esteem. Enrich your marriage or remarriage.
• Heal from emotional/physical/sexual/ spiritual abuse.
• Make moral/ethical decisions.
• Parent more effectively.
• Rebuild your life after a significant loss or change.
• Resolve causes of depression, anxiety, anger, confusion, and insecurity.
• Assess growth and vocational concerns with your future partner.
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• The Mediation Process can help you when your marriage has irretrievably broken down:

• To find resolution to areas of dispute such as residential rights under the family law, property settlement etc. with the minimum of legal and court fees. 
• Isolate the matters of dispute between parties through the assistance of a neutral third person or persons, thereby assisting you to develop options and alternatives to reach consensual and voluntary agreement that satisfies each participants (partner's and children's) needs.
• Attain acceptable resolution and settlement of issues of dispute through an impartial and neutral third party who has no authoritative decision-making powers.

For more detail go to our mediation page. (see sidebar)

• ACCREDITED MENTAL HEALTH SOCIAL WORKER

Access to Better Health Care, Chronic Disease Management (Team Care Arrangement) and Better Outcomes in Mental Health Initiative Medicare funding  requires your General Practitioner (doctor)  to formulate a Mental Health Care Plan.

• FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION:

Joan Spencer is a registered family dispute resolution provider. A registered family dispute resolution provider is an individual or organisation who has met the required standards of training, experience and suitability for inclusion on the Family Dispute Resolution Register. (Commonwealth Government, Attorney's General Dept.)

Family dispute resolution is the name in the Family Law Act  (1975) for services such as mediation and conciliation that help people affected by separation and divorce to sort out their disputes with each other. You may have reached a point where you can't agree on issues concerning your property, children, or money. You may not be able to talk to each other at all.

Family dispute resolution can help you sort out these issues without going to court. If you can resolve your differences you'll save yourself time, money and a whole lot of stress.

A family dispute resolution practitioner can help  you and the other person discuss issues, look at options, and to develop arrangements for your children. Even if you can't reach agreement, family dispute resolution may help you communicate better and better manage areas where you disagree.

From 1 July 2007, if you want to apply to the court for a parenting order (and you have not previously applied], you will need a certificate from a registered family dispute resolution provider which confirms that an attempt at family dispute resolution was made.  There are some exceptions to this requirement, such as cases involving family violence or child abuse. Much of the above information has been gleaned from the Commonweath Attorney's General Department website. Joan Spencer is registered with the Attorney's General Department.

Further information can be found at http://www.familyrelationships.gov.au/fdr#q4

• Pre-marriage courses can help you learn how to enhance your relationship, and put into place those relationship skills that will help to ensure the growth in intimacy so essential for a happy marriage. 

  Our pre-marriage course  is now available by correspondence. 

  The correspondence course consists of six sessions and builds up to a resource book that can help you survive married life's small glitches along the way. For more information click on Pre-marriage Courses in the side bar.

  The Correspondence Course can be purchased for $175.00 AUD (Includes all material, certificate on completion, plus postage and handling.)

  Prospective course students living in Australia can enrol by contacting us on (03) 97 965 965.

  Overseas prospective course students can enrol by ringing us on 61 3 9796 5965. 

  Both local and overseas prospective students can email: Enquiries@jspencer.com.au

  The Couple with Counsellor Course costs $100 per session for six sessions bringing the total cost to $600.00 AUD.  The advantage of this two to one, face to face course is that you have the entire attention and interaction of the experienced counsellor. As a consequence the value of the course to you is increased exponentially. This course option alsoncludes all material, and certificate on completion, plus the offer of the counsellor to act as a relationship coach in the future to help you handle any issues, problems or conflicts that may arise in your future marriage or relationship. This may be a free short telephone consultation or a paid appointment with the counsellor at your convenience if the presenting problem needs more intensive counselling.

  Group session with group leader is another option. This option depends on the ability to form a group of at least five couples. Again this offer includes the interaction of the group leader. It is presented over a six hour grouping of six sessions, usually on the one day. The group leader will also offer  to act as a relationship coach in the future to help you handle any  issues, problems or conflicts that may arise in your future marriage or relationship. The group session with group leader option costs $250.00 AUD.

  What to expect from a Pre-marriage Course.

   

  • Pre-marriage courses should not focus on problems, but help couples to prepare to meet challenges ahead. Good pre-marriage courses and counselling will nonetheless help you to become aware of the pitfalls that can catch you when you least expect them.
  • Consultation adapting to the new commitment of marriage.
  • Competent counsellors will help you discover why some successful defacto relationships run into trouble after the wedding. 
  • Drawing from their experience in helping couples when things go wrong,  and combined with years of premarital counselling sessions behind them, you can expect qualified and experienced  pre-marriage  counsellors to be in a position to help you develop a fulfilling relationship. 
  • You can expect a that a pre-marriage course is designed to assist couples to learn how to develop their future marriage relationship and to enrich their love and commitment to each other.
  • Such courses will use of adult learning activities couples are given the opportunity to learn such skills as listening to each other, to speak up, to have their needs and expectations met. Couples learn to be able to handle problems and conflict constructively.
  • Here at Joan Spencer & Associates we  have found most couples prefer to meet individually with a course leader/counsellor. In this instance the course comprises two 2 hourly sessions. However group sessions can be arranged if required depending on demand.
  • For more detail, session content etc, go to our pre-marriage page. (see sidebar)

  Testimonial:

  The following couple participated in our Pre-marriage course during 2003 and have continued on taking advantage of our marriage coaching.

  Our experience with Joan Spencer has been enriching.  We walk out feeling positive and empowered with practical problem solving skills.  It is like having a relationship mentor with confidentiality guaranteed.  We were able to gain great ideas, tried and proven through personal experience.  The readings that we received were relevant and gave extra food for thought.  Each session set the ground work for clearer communication between us.

  Dianne and Ivan