Individual & Couples Counselling in Fremantle
Katie Woodley-Smith: Registered Counsellor for individuals and couples exploring attachment and relationships.
Esteemed Registered Counsellor Katie Woodley-Smith brings her wealth of experience, warmth and wisdom to individual and couple clients online and in person from a gentle, compassionate and curious perspective.
She holds a Master of Counselling Degree from the reputable Notre Dame University with specialist advanced training.
Katie gently supports clients in their challenges and curiosities with attachment, childhood experiences, trauma, relationships, feelings of emotional disconnection, family stress, separation and parenting.
Attachment counselling in Fremantle
“My love for my work comes from the great joy of walking beside clients as you integrate past experiences that have been holding you back. Counselling can help you release outdated beliefs, providing you the freedom and space to begin living the life you truly want.
Being present with you as you untangle shame, grief and trauma has been one of the greatest privileges of my life as I can see the transformations, insight and wisdom happening right with you.
I work with a person-centred approach that incorporates an understanding of the body and the way in which it holds trauma and stress. I can guide you through body awareness and self-regulation techniques that help you release energy and build your capacity to find inner safety. With these skills, you’ll have greater choice over your responses to what life throws at you.
I’m particularly passionate about using an internal family systems-informed approach where we lovingly work to support all parts of your psyche with compassion, acceptance, openness and curiosity. With this view, we embrace all of you, rather than work to get rid of the parts of you that you don’t like.
I believe relationships are the centre of our human experience and deeply understanding our attachment styles, needs and reactions is invaluable to your well-being and relationship connection. They are key to the development and sense of your self and yet, with insight and awareness, we can more mindfully change the way we show up in relationships and connect to others.
Deepening an understanding of how you have been socialised and challenging assumptions that no longer serve you are an integral part of how we will work together. You can find the connection, emotional soothing, understanding and secure attachments you crave in relationships and with yourself.”
Katie’s areas of specialty
Childhood/adult Trauma
Family of origin
Workplace stress
Feeling disconnected from your partner
Feeling emotionally neglected
Repetitive arguments you can’t resolve
Men’s counselling
Life re-evaluation and direction
Emotional regulation and self-soothing
Nervous system regulation and education
Relationships
Attachment anxiety or avoidance
Co-dependence
Hyper-Independence
Anxiety and depression
Stress and burnout.
Parenthood, co-parenting, blended families
Managing In-law relationships
Separation and divorce
Inner Child Healing
Your attachment style is at the core of who you are and how you give and receive love and connection. Through attachment-focused therapy, you’ll move towards the connection, intimacy and relational fulfillment you crave.
Attachment-focused relationship therapy
& counselling for individuals
Individual counselling is for you if you feel you are not experiencing the relationships you desire. There can be many reasons for this: Parts of you and your ways of interacting have developed throughout your life to survive may no longer be serving you. The messages you internalised as a child may have led you to develop walls or unhelpful ways of coping that gets int he way of the relationships that mean the most to you.
Family roles, emotional invalidation, intergenerational stress and trauma may be key to your experience and development into adulthood. I know from my years of work specialising in attachment trauma that these experiences are invaluable to explore through counselling to gain a deeper understanding of the adult you. So much of how you react, respond and express yourself comes from an Inner Child within you that Is important to re-connect with, soothe, heal and set free.
Together we will unpack the circumstances that brought you to where you are and build skills and resources that will help you support yourself to move into the way of being in the world that brings you joy, alignment and the connection in relationship you crave.
I’ll do this by exploring your influential childhood and young adult experiences, relationship history, nervous system regulation and education, and specialist guidance and support for facing real-time challenges in your relationships. Whether you’re craving a relationship or in one, attachment focused therapy will support you as our attachment styles are at the core of how we seek, form and maintain relationships.
Attachment-focused relationship therapy
& counselling for couples.
Couples counselling can be revolutionary if you are stuck in a cycle that doesn’t seem to be moving. It gives you the opportunity to hear each other without getting caught in the communication cycles of trying to ‘win’ disagreements. I help you move beyond superficial or repetitive arguments:
We’ll explore the fiery emotions such as anger, resentment, and contempt that are creating distance and tension between you and your partner. I know from experience that often, the softer or more vulnerable emotions of loneliness, fear, and sadness are almost always underlying the disagreements you’re having.
When you’re in these arguments or cycles, it can be so hard to see them and unpack them. That’s where I’ll guide you to a deeper understanding of yourself and your interactions with your partner, so we can work to rebuild your connection.
Couples counselling is also incredibly useful when working through a relationship crisis whether it be the pain of infidelity or betrayal or big changes in your family such as blending a family, new parenthood or managing in-laws. Having an experienced therapist present to keep you focused and productive with practical yet insightful strategies will help you navigate the challenges life will inevitably throw at you as a couple with a team approach while you navigate the rocky patches.
I’ll work with an emotion-focused perspective building empathy and helping you to communicate in ways that bring you together. I use an attachment-focused model with the understanding that we bring into our relationships our vulnerabilities from childhood and previous relationships.
The more clearly those vulnerabilities can be understood within the couple the more consciously they can be dealt with without causing further pain and distance. In my experience, most problems between couples come from past traumas, attachment styles, communication breakdowns and a lack of shared values and goals.
All of these can respond successfully to couples counselling and the insight, self-reflection and deeper understanding you will have of how you and your partner operate, even when you process, think and express yourself in different ways.
I’ve helped many couples not only stay together, but start a new chapter in their relationship that feels lighter, more connected, intimate and hopeful again. Safe and healthy relationships are the core of Mental Health, so investing in strengthening your relationship is an invaluable investment you can make in your life, relationship, family and your general wellbeing.
I’ve helped many couples not only stay together but start a new chapter in their relationship that feels lighter, more connected, intimate and hopeful again.
Experience and Qualifications
Education & Experience
8+ years of counselling and private practice experience
Specialist training and experience in attachment therapy.
Master of Counselling, Notre Dame University 2017
Bachelor of Occupational Therapy, Curtin University, 2005
Professional Development
Internal Family Systems Therapy
Schema Therapy
Polyvagal Theroay/ Nervous-System Regulation
Somatic Regulation
Emotion-Focused Couples Counselling
Registration and Rebates
Registered counsellor with PACFA (Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation Australia)
Rebates available with private health insurers: Bupa, HCF, Medibank, ahm and ARHG
Safe and healthy relationships are the core of Mental Health, so investing in strengthening your relationship is an invaluable investment you can make in
your life, relationship, family and your general well-being.
A happy life starts with a happy home.
Make an enquiry to work with Katie
Katie works online or in person in Ardross on Fridays and Saturdays in Fremantle with individual adults and couples.
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