Caroline Williams

Therapy and Counselling Services

There are times in life when we need to reach out for professional support, to end the silent struggle and create a life of hope.

Caroline Williams, a qualified and experienced counsellor, enables you to explore your emotions, thoughts, and behaviours in a safe and confidential environment. By facilitating increased self-awareness and healing psychological wounds, Caroline will give you the tools to improve current life situations and create long term well-being.

Caroline provides services that target many issues, these commonly include:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Alcohol use
• Drug use
• Disordered eating
• Relationship difficulties
• Grief & loss.
• Trauma & PTSD
• Childhood trauma
• Sexual abuse
• Emotional distress
• Self improvement

About Caroline

I began my journey many years ago, working with families and individuals as a counselor in mainstream/private addiction agencies and counseling services such as: CADS, Salvation Army, EDEN, Victim Support, Life Line, Capri Trust and Serenity Clinic (where I was the Senior Counsellor). Additionally, I design and run workshops for the Auckland Women’s Centre.

Over the years I have gained the following:

• Diploma in Counselling
• Post Graduate in Addiction Processes
• ASSIST Suicide Prevention Certificate
• Specialized working with abuse, trauma and PTSD cases
• South Auckland Violence Prevention
• Holistic Therapy Meditation & Visualisation Techniques
• Member NZ Association of Counsellors (MNZAC)

Addiction

For over 10 years Caroline Williams has successfully worked with individuals and families who have been impacted by substance use and abuse. Often individuals and families struggle for years before seeking professional help due to feeling unsure of what to do and how to make long term changes.

Many people are fully able to continue functioning in their everyday lives while working an individual out-patient treatment plan with Caroline – especially one which encompasses the whole person, not just the substance use. This approach digs deeper into the underlying causes and conditions of the entire addictive disease process.

Anxiety

When anxiety becomes problematic and starts to interfere with your normal daily activities, sleep, relationships, work  and even health then therapy can be the next step. Therapy for managing anxiety can be non intrusive and depending on the severity/origins treated with practical and empowering tools giving you back the freedom to live your life again.

Anxiety can be changed through supportive and practical therapy. Please feel free to contact Caroline for a free consultation if you want to:

• Manage panic attacks and reduce onset
• Learn to change the negative voice in your head
• Reduce the mental chatter and create more peace
• Feel more relaxed and be able to engage in the life you want
• Return to more balanced sleep patterns and coping strategies

Disordered Eating

Anorexia nervosa, bulimia, and overeating disorders can have numerous combinations of signs, symptoms and causes. Many people who suffer with eating disorders show no outward signs, but still experience overwhelming internal feelings that prompt them to rely on symptoms to control intense pain, anxiety or other troubling emotions.

For over 15 years I have worked specifically with eating disordered individuals and families to help them find a way back to health and lifelong recovery from this crippling mental health problem. You can learn to be mindful of feelings like anxiety, fear or shame, and to experience them in ways that won’t compromise the joy in your life. By addressing the person as a whole and acknowledging that co-existing disorders often accompany/contribute to the disordered eating, you can discover the full joy life has to offer.

Relationships

Relationships form one of the core basics in everyone’s daily life. However, all relationships can encounter difficulties at some point. Please feel free to contact Caroline for a free consultation if you want to:

• Create more connection and understanding in your current relationships
• Start a new intimate relationship without the ‘baggage”
• Learn how to change or end a relationship with dignity and clarity
• Break out of love dependency and reclaim your independence
• Learn to manage conflict or difficulties with work colleagues/bosses
• Heal the hurts/trauma of past relationships so you can move on
• Support loved ones through grief, depression or addiction

Trauma and PTSD

Stress, trauma and PTSD often get confused and mixed together when in fact there are significant differences and specific therapy approaches which are required for successful therapy. Also key is working with a specialist  trauma/PTSD therapist such as Caroline Williams. Caroline has completed training with Auckland PSI Institute gaining an overall evidence-based treatment approach for working with complex trauma and dissociation, that addresses the root causes of trauma and its neurobiology and so results are often long term recovery. Highly effective psychological and somatic (body regulation) techniques are woven into a carefully staged treatment approach. By working with Caroline you will heal early experiences of abandonment, neglect, trauma, and attachment loss, that otherwise tend to play out repetitively and cyclically throughout the lifespan in relationship struggles.