Wendy Styles
Wendy Styles is a counsellor and registered psychologist with thirty years experience in working with individuals, couples and families. She has a particular interest in working with couples.
Wendy grew up in Canberra, starting school at Ainslie Infants School. With an Arts degree from ANU majoring in psychology, and a teaching background, Wendy began her counselling career as a marriage counsellor with the Canberra Marriage Counselling Service. It was in this context that her ongoing interest in systems theory and its application to family therapy developed.
Wendy and a colleague developed a an innovative domestic violence train-the-trainer package for the NSW Government as part of the recommendations of the National Committee on Violence against Women, and went on to conduct training courses in various parts of Australia and New Zealand.
In 1988, Wendy moved to the Family Court where she was a counsellor for most of the next twelve years, specialising in dispute resolution and family assessment. From there, in 2000, Wendy and a colleague set up a small private counselling practice which offered a range of counselling and dispute resolution services, as well as family assessments and reports for the courts in disputed family law matters.
Alongside individual and couple work, Wendy was developing and conducting various therapeutic groups and professional training courses, in areas such as assertiveness, effective communication, co-parenting after separation, and responding appropriately to domestic violence.
In all her work, Wendy is interested in narrative frameworks that enable people to uncover authentic and ongoing aspects of their personal histories that fit with what they value in life, and to distance themselves from self-descriptions that emphasise problems, inadequacies, and failure.
Wendy also conducts mediation sessions. Normally mediation sessions are scheduled for an hour and a half. The cost for this is $210 dollars ($140 per hour). Wendy is happy to devote a few minutes at the beginning of the session for each parent on their own, to outline their issues and concerns, if they so wish. Otherwise she would see the parents together for the entire session. If required, she is willing to schedule separate one hour sessions and a joint session on different days. Occasionally, if appropriate, children are consulted separately, as a way of assisting the parents to resolve issues.