CROOKES COUNSELLING returns to TORQUAY

I am delighted to be opening a branch of my psychology practice in Torquay, after seven years away.

In that time, I began a corporate practice in Werribee, which now has 12 practitioners – 10 psychologists and two clinical social workers.

I have 43 years’ experience as a psychologist, having worked the vast majority of that time in Geelong, Torquay and Anglesea.

It is good to be coming home – I live on the Surf Coast and enjoy all that is wonderful about this fantastic region.

After graduating from Monash University in 1976, I began my working life in Geelong at, what was then, the Geelong Psychiatric Centre, specialising in Child and Adolescent psychology.

In 2002, I completed post-graduate studies in loss and grief at the University of Queensland.

My particular passion lies in trauma, loss and grief, but I also love working in the areas of workplace stress, injury and illness; resilience coaching; nutritional psychology and personalised integrative therapy.

The latter covering psychology; diet and nutrition; lifestyle and environment; social and spiritual life; and biological and medical concerns.

Following a UK Study tour in 2004, I founded the Geelong-based charity Wombat’s Wish – a community-based grief support program for children, adolescents and families where a parent or primary carer has died.

Wombat’s Wish has now conducted 23 camps for 5- to 16-year-olds at Burnside Camp in Anglesea.

While I am no longer the program coordinator, I continue to work at the camps and find the weekends rewarding, exciting, challenging, fun and exhausting.

Watching the families evolve over the weekend from positions of trauma and grief to resilience and growth is extremely gratifying and humbling.

I continue to enjoy studying the rapidly growing research and science in the field of psychology and applying this knowledge to helping people to meet the challenges they face and to develop meaningful, lasting change.