Cary McDermott

I am a counsellor with over 25 years of clinical knowledge and experience.  I will offer you a safe and confidential space where you can talk about whatever is troubling you.  So you can make the changes you want, and so that you can flourish. 

I can help you with:

• Anxiety
• Creativity
• Depression
• Grief and loss
• Issues facing the LGBTQI+ community
• Life changes
• Narcissistic Abuse
• Self-esteem issues
• Social isolation and loneliness
• Stress and burnout
• Relationship issues
• Trauma/PTSD
• Women’s issues
• Workplace bullying

Counselling/Therapy Services

In our first meeting, we will discuss what brings you to counselling.  You may know what aspect of your life you want to change.  Or you may need help working out what is causing you distress, or what changes you want to make.  You may want to:

• Feel better about yourself
• Set healthier boundaries in relationships
• Build strategies to understand and interrupt your anxiety
• Develop new ways of regulating painful or difficult emotions
• Change recurring or painful patterns in relationships
• Take better care of yourself 
• Understand and protect yourself from narcissistic abuse
• Recover from an abusive relationship
• Build ways to manage and deal with stress
• Deal with workplace bullying, or its continued impact from the past
• Build safety in the present so you can process and recover from trauma

Counselling can help you deal with a recent change or loss, or something you have been struggling with for some time, or help you understand and recover from events in your past.  We will work together to understand whatever is troubling you, and whether your particular coping strategies are working.  Some of your strategies will be constructive, and others may not always serve you.  Part of the counselling process will be to develop some new strategies that work for you. 

Through therapy it is possible to develop an increased sense of emotional wellbeing, and a more constructive and adaptive approach to your life and any future difficulties going forward.  So you can have a more deeply satisfying life.

Counselling/Therapy Approach

Building safety and trust and a sense of being truly listened to and understood is the foundation of the therapeutic relationship.  This sounds simple – but focused, attentive listening is itself therapeutic.  In this environment it becomes possible to explore whatever it is you need to explore, to make sense of yourself and your emotions, to understand old patterns and behaviours and to experiment with making changes with ongoing support.

I bring over 25 years of accumulated knowledge and experience to help you recover, heal, and change.

My practice is LGBTQI+ affirmative.  It is essential to how I work that however you identify, you are offered a safe and inclusive environment in which to experience therapy.

Background and Experience

I completed a Bachelor in Psychology and Masters in Social Science, and completed a full time Diploma in Counselling with the Human Development and Training Institute (HD&T).  I trained as a clinical supervisor and continued to train with experts in their fields both in New Zealand and overseas.  I am a full member of the New Zealand Association of Counsellors.

I bring over 25 years of knowledge and experience to my work as a counsellor.  I have trained and worked with various therapeutic models and draw from a wide range including but not limited to psychodynamic (relational dynamics and attachment), emotional integration and somatic integration therapies, person centred/Rogerian, Gestalt, trauma models, systems therapy, emotion focused therapy, transactional analysis and mindfulness.

As well as working in private practice, I have worked in a range of community agencies dealing with many different psychological issues and contexts, with people from a wide variety of backgrounds and life experiences both in New Zealand and overseas.