Imaginif move to 30 James St, North Cairns
July 1, 2008
Do you lead a life of craziness? I know that I do and I also know that on my death bed I will not be saying, “gee I wish I had worked harder.” What does it take for you to slow down? Is it the weekend, a death, a visitor, a breakdown, moving?
At Imaginif we are craziness personified slowing down because we are moving office to
For the next two weeks Imaginif will be on minimum response (existing appointments will be kept). We will reopen to new referrals, appointments, regular business blogging and trainings on July 14, 2008.
A redirect will be put on the existing Imaginif telephone number but once I have our new tele/fax details I will update the website and send out the new information in our newsletter.
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Privacy verses secrecy
June 28, 2008
Secrets are bad. They are banned in the Imaginif house and business. Secrets make people all scrambled up in the head. Why would anybody want to hold knowledge that they are not allowed to tell anybody else, ever? Sex predators, paedophiles, child abusers and those in the process of grooming for silence LOVE secrets and LOVE to find people willing to keep secrets. Secrets are bad.
Privacy is good. Privacy has boundaries around it - protectors of information that says that this information is for a limited set of ears only thank you. We have privacy conversations in our home. Master 12 knows that there are some things that are private - information for our family only. One of those privacy rules is his name. Online we refer to him as Boy or Master 12. Privacy is good.
While I am open, I am also fiercely defensive of our family privacy. Therapists lead a life that others like to know about…but, we deserve privacy and a respect of that privacy - we have a work life and a private life where we do things that other people do - boring things. If all we ever did was live our private life by the therapists rule book that says you do no harm and use high level skills, we might just go crazy!
Even though I am a staunch child protection and child rights advocate, it does not mean I am a perfect mother. I have yelled at my children before. I have even smacked Boy with a newspaper before (omg, I nearly died when I did that…sorry Boy…it was a very, very wrong thing for me to do and I am responsible for throwing a tantrum). I have said things to him that I would never say to another person: I have even sworn at him. While I understand the context around all of this stressed parenting syndrome, many of my clients would not. They live still in a black and white world where risk management, shades of grey and human behaviour becomes too confusing and threatening. Therefore, I keep my personal life outside of the counselling room so as not to confuse those struggling to reach their own self determination and understanding. And, my personal life is my personal noise - there’s no room in counselling for my own psychological noise.
Some people are horrified to discover that I am most comfortable, at home, in few clothes (T-shirt and swimmers) and that I often undress in front of Boy (not totally you understand). Boy himself is drama queen horrified and he covers his eyes as though shrinking from me and pretend whinges, as he holds up a finger made Christian cross, “Mum, I thought you were working against child abuse.” Boy knows that my state of undress is a private family thing and that I would just die if ever I was caught like that. Boy also knows that it is not a secret and he takes ample opportunity to make jokes to his friends about it - “…make sure you always ring before coming over so that you don’t have to see Mum in her swimming togs! Urrggghhhhhhhh, vomit.”
Privacy is now gone! Our back garden was very private and none of our neighbours could see in. Preparing for our move, our back garden was yesterday severely cut back for maximum regrowth. Far out….I had forgotten that there were houses, with people who live in them, right next door to us! Today I’ll be wearing a full set of clothes as I potter around the back yard. Why, because my privacy is paramount and I do not want to traumatise anybody outside of my family by having them view me in my swimming togs!!!.
Imaginif moving to 30 James St, North Cairns
If you are interested in renting a magnificent 4 bedroom, en suite, fully self contained granny flat and very deep swimming pool home at 206 Jensen St, Edge Hill (Cairns), I suggest you contact L.J.Hooker Edge Hill immediately.
$500.00 per week.
Great location and great neighbours.
Knowledge Solutions. A message to the Social Services
June 26, 2008
The social and non government sectors have long been known for not readily sharing helpful information with each other. Competitive funding rounds frequently create competition, secrecy and suspicion among agencies and workers. We are all just so precious at times. Licensing, accreditation, low wages and high case loads, lead to high staff turnover, burn out and in house bickering. Is it any wonder I now work in the private sector!
Case management is supposedly about knowledge solutions and resource sharing. In rhetoric it works well. In reality, I am appalled at the lack of professionalism and client focus across the human services. We are quick to judge, point fingers and blame others for an overall unruly sector that continues to dance to the under funded drum.
Some years ago I chose to stop dancing to Government funding and set outcomes and to instead work in a collaborative way with a focus on client need. I treat my clients as the boss and offer them the respect they deserve. I work to best practice, even though the budget often reflects not being able to work that way. In the private sector, I make that choice because I decide what is most worthy.
Despite my move away from Government control and my firm belief that child protection is everybody’s responsibility, I still operate across a social service sector that is not terribly skilled in sharing resources. Stop it! Stop trying to protect your own ego, position or skill level. Pay it forward: share your knowledge and skill with an expectation of making the world a better place for everybody. Stop maintaining the staus quo. Instead do something differently.
I have recently entered a collaborative partnership with Knowledge Solutions. A small group of professionals, all with expertise in different areas and a passion to do business differently, we are set to share some communication resources designed to improve individual life, business life and community life. I’ll be blogging to Knowledge Solutions weekly and I would love to hear business feedback and reflective comments from you in the community sector.
Knowledge Solutions: Placing the future in your hands and supporting collaborative business infrastructure
Why? Because child protection is serious business!
How to cope with change
June 25, 2008
Coping with change is an issue that drives many people to therapy. Me too! Lucky I’ve got two other therapists here to therapise me.
At Imaginif, we have begun the packing process, cleaning process, moving process and….. the insanity process. Agggghhhhhh!!!! There, that feels better 
because I am managing my emotion rather than allow my emotions to become overwhelmed with the constant and demanding change.
Change is somewhat scary and threatening to many. Just as emotions have to be managed, so too does change. If a person can manage to get out of bed and live this hectic life, then they are already managing. If they can manage life, they can manage change, because life changes: constantly.
To manage change, it needs to be seen as a task. The task is then broken into smaller tasks - little parts that can be worked on, one at a time if needed. The completion of each mini sub task is an achievement, an act of management, a success.
Change is constant in life; a good thing or we’d all die of boredom. Unfortunately, what is not always so good is negative thoughts (stinkin’ thinkin’) about change. If your thoughts are telling you that you cannot cope, then you may not. If your thoughts are telling you that you can manage this change by breaking it into small, easily achievable parts then you will no doubt cope with the change.
Moving, divorce and death are all changes that rate high on the stress scale. We are moving, we are stressed, but I don’t think any of us are contemplating divorce or death. Why? Because we are managing our change. We are coping with a stressful situation by breaking the days into smaller moving tasks.
Apart from coping with change, what is different at Imaginif?
Talk doctor Rebekah did the last training at 206 Jensen St yesterday. She still has some clients booked in but apart from that, we are preparing to move to our new premises at 30 James St.
Rebekah and I are both going to have some time off from scheduled appointments: no new counselling, supervision, training or consultations until we kick off at the new place on July 14. Talk doctor Fran (just back from a six week holiday in the Mediterranean) will be working on Palm Island for a week so she’s out of the office anyway (lucky woman - that’s a great way to manage ).
And….when we are firmly entrenched at 30 James Street, we are going to offer telephone counselling. Many people find it difficult to physically access a counsellor. Issues of access, mobility and often even depression or toxic shame prevent some people from thriving in a therapeutic relationship. We have heard this from the many people who ring or email and we are providing you a service that suits your needs. Talk doctor Fran will become the designated life coach telephone counsellor and sessions will be at half the rate of a face to face session. No matter where you live in Australia now, you can access the fantastic therapeutic services available at Imaginif. Sign up for our newsletter so that you do not miss announcements and special deals surrounding this new service.
Want to change manage your anger? Know this:
The Anger Volcano: Anger is a secondary emotion.
Guinea Pig therapy pets
June 14, 2008
Meet the guinea girls (names to be decided by our child therapy clients),
They began their probationary employment as therapy pets for the Imaginif practice this morning.
Talk doctor Rebekah Allen will be in charge of supervising the pet therapy while Imaginif director, Megan Bayliss, will direct where the hutch is placed each evening and what delicacies the girls can pig out on. The two girls themselves (a pair of little pigs, I’ll have you know) will be in charge of delivering attachment and socialisation skills, empathy, nurturing and grounded focus for children quick to dissociate.
Welcome to Imaginif girls.
Thank you to young male child and his Mum, Tracey, for allowing the guinea pigs to become therapy pets who will help the child clients at Imaginif.
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Do you know what bibliotherapy is? Click Megan's book to learn how to use a story to solve a problem.
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