Experienced Clinical Psychologist Specializing in Complex Difficulties, Relationships, Parenting, and Work-related Issues
Laura’s qualifications are a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology. Prior to qualifying as a psychologist she completed a Masters degree in Sociology.
Laura has 22 years of experience as a Clinical Psychologist working with both adults and adolescents in private practice, school and hospital settings. She provides therapy for both individuals and couples.
Laura’s areas of expertise and experience are broad and include depression, anxiety, ADHD, post-natal difficulties, work stress, loss, life stage difficulties, immigration, parenting and relationship issues.
A particular area of interest and expertise for Laura is working with complex difficulties or lifelong patterns, such as re-ocurring themes in relationships, attachment styles, self-worth, careers or family. Laura helps her clients to understand and redefine these patterns in ways that make sense of and heal causal influences, such as childhood experiences, trauma, or life events, and that cultivate new ways of experiencing themselves and their life. As part of this work, Laura also encourages clients to learn to calm their nervous systems as a means of coping with the symptoms of trauma, anxiety and depression. She is also interested in helping clients to understand how socio-economic and cultural factors can influence their mental health.
Another area of Laura’s experience is helping clients both understand and improve their relationships, be they romantic or with family members, friends or co-workers. She helps her clients understand and manage concerns with regard to dating, choice of partner, relationship conflict, infidelity and navigating relationship breakdown. She is passionate about non-violent communication, which is a constructive way of learning to communicate openly and with integrity.
Laura enjoys helping young adults with their transition through an important and challenging lifestage. She works with identity, sexuality and relationship issues as well as difficulties with education, the workplace, anxiety and depression.
Another area of interest and expertise for Laura is parenting and parent-child relationships. In her early career, she worked as a school psychologist. This fostered an expertise in various developmental issues in children and adolescents. She enjoys helping parents adjust to parenthood and cope with difficulties in this period such as post-natal depression. She is also able to help parents better navigate their journey with children who are battling with school and social difficulties, divorce, anxiety and depression. In addition, Laura can help parents cope with their children’s learning difficulties, attention issues and autism spectrum challenges. She has also worked extensively with adults who have ADHD.
Laura is able to offer work-related counselling and therapy for issues such as work stress and anxiety and work-life balance.
In addition to providing therapy, Laura has conducted Master’s level research on parenting and bereavement, and has received numerous academic awards and scholarships. She has published several articles in journals on topics related to children and parenting, and has presented to other Psychologists and mental health professionals at numerous conferences and workshops.
Laura’s approach to therapy primarily psychodynamic, but she integrates this with other modalities to suit the needs of each individual client. She aims to help clients develop greater self- understanding, self -acceptance and a more mindful approach to their lives. Laura enjoys working with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. She is a dedicated, warm and sensitive therapist, who sees the therapist-client relationship as a central part of the healing process.
Laura is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, and has specialist endorsement as a Clinical Psychologist. She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian Psychological Society College of Clinical Psychologists.
Phone: Sydney (02) 9331 0756 e-mail: enquiries@lissajohnson.com.au Address: Suite 517, 185 Elizabeth St Sydney