Profile/Counsellor's Background and Training

Hi I'm Owen Robinson and I qualified as a counsellor in 1995 after a long career as a secondary teacher and careers counsellor.  Now I have  professional specialist title 'accredited mental health social worker' so this means I am a Medicare provider as well. As a profession we see ourselves as specialists in complexity.  Also as a 'greying' clinician I provide clinical supervision for numerous other clinicians with less or similar years of experience.

As a survivor of childhood emotional neglect (a form of complex trauma) my personal and professional life has been very much about making sense of my back story, the limitations that it put on me and my relationship skills.  It started me on a mission to find language to make meaning of hurt and sensations that can be hard to feel.  I've become quite dedicated to find ways to outsmart immobilising anxiety and unhelpful behaviour patterns it creates.  

My family did not realise until I was 20 that my mother had serious and enduring mental ill health that would later involve involuntary treatment for the rest of her life (as did my brother).  I didn't really want to learn that I had many addictions that help me avoid painful emotion: formalised religion was one of them (I worked for a church organisation for 20 years and my father was a clergyman); computer gaming another; so was distress eating; screen enternainment and social media overuse.  They all contribute a level of psychological  numbing of painful emotion (dissociating/dehumanising).  It's been humbling to work out that I put my own children through childhood emotional neglect while I was so busy trying to not feel real painful emotion.  

As a counsellor and supervisor a lighthouse metaphor is attractive to me: having crashed on all kinds of rocks I intentionally try to show people how to do life without crashing on those rocks too; I encourage courageous conversations that are more honest about how much we try to feel anything-but-real; I like to collaborate with people to find better ways to be kind to ourselves and others when we feel things we don't like feeling, and to be authentic about limitations and boundaries we need to strengthen.  

To visit my LinkedIn Profile please click here.

To see some of my Professional Development record you are welcome to click here.

Here is a little more about my professional background:-

• private practice since 1999 (part-time until 2012; then full time until now);


• managed a branch of Relationships Australia, one of Australia's largest relationship counselling organisations;


• 5 years as a case manager/acting senior social worker in community and inpatient adult mental health;


• 5 years managing a school counselling service at one of Perth’s oldest private secondary colleges. 


I've been married to one wife since 1984 and I have 2 adult children.  My other qualifications include:

• a Masters degree in Counselling (La Sierra University),


• a post-graduate Diploma of Management (University of Newcastle),


• and Bachelors Degrees in Social Work (Curtin University of Technology) and in Education (Avondale University - formerly Avondale College). 


Whilst I hold a current Working with Children Check (evidence is available to view upon request) I have now ceased to take on cases with children.  I now work with only adults.

While I personally have a Christian world view I work beside clients from   other spiritual or value systems.  My approach is holistic so I'm willing to include your value system in your counselling sessions. Helpful insights from your own belief system will be encouraged.   I may ask you if you want prayer and you are welcome to decline. 

You will see from my qualifications and professional development history that I have a high level of training in a wide variety of treatment modalities and counselling models.  I have over 20 years of experience in assessing and treating a range of psychological disorders including clinical mental health conditions and trauma related disorders.

It may help to know I'm registered on the referral database of Blue Knot Foundation (formerly Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) as a trauma-informed clinician and am experienced at treating trauma symptoms.

Open Arms (formerly Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service) contracts my services as an Outreach Programme Counsellor.

This service acknowledges the importance of clinical supervision in the provision of safer and more effective professional services and self-care of the clinician.

I'm particularly interested in and experienced in providing ways to:

- manage anxiety or panic attacks

- improve safety from family violence and domestic abuse

- improve recovery from trauma and victimisation

- make sense of the effects of fostering, adoption and parental/carer

   neglect as a child on adult relationships

- work out how to value and grow one's sense of 'self'

- communicate better in relationships

- improve boundary setting and assertiveness in relationships

- understand anger and the painful emotions it often helps to hide

- manage depression better and reduce suicide thinking

- live through bereavement and gradually adjust to grief and loss less harmfully

- understand and manage symptoms of bipolar affective disorder and other

   serious and enduring mental health conditions

- recover better from alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems (not IV drugs however) in conjunction with attendance to an AOD service programme

- find more ways to handle or reduce distress

- get more effective parenting ideas

- reduce relationship problems with children

- reduce relationship problems or conflict with one's spouse

- maximise coping for people with autism symptoms

- clarify career and life path values and direction

- work out what to do about workplace problems

- navigate life transitions and adjustments to big changes

- grow personal understanding (especially post-traumatic growth)

- involve Jesus/prayer in recovery and growth (when desired by a client)

To get a more detailed picture of my specialised skills and interests click here.

The therapist does NOT specialise in some fields and prefers to not take referrals for:

- pregnancy termination counselling

- treating fixed delusional thoughts

- treating chronic life limiting or life threatening illnesses including eating disorders

- aged care

- gender dysphoria or sexual preference issues. (a client’s preferred goals and values in this area will be respected and not determined by the therapist); LGBTIQ+ issues or gender transitioning are areas this service has no training and little experience addressing

- expert witness services or other justice services (an exception is made for statutary declarations where there is alleged family and domestic violence)

- intravenous drug use

The therapist does NOT provide:

- intravenous drug use treatment (I reserve the right to terminate sessions if this becomes known)

- rehabilitation of injury under worker's compensation

- psychometric testing for assessing specific learning difficulties

- letters or reports for people who are not current clients or who did not inform the service about need for the letter at commencement of treatment

- home visits

- case management

- formal family dispute resolution

I'm able to provide treatment for post-abortion grief/trauma for women and for men; however I do not provide pregnancy termination counselling unless a person wants to know more about abortion grief/trauma and options for having supports in place to keep a pregnancy; I will refer to pro-choice services if requested.  

Key Contributions & Achievements

I've provided public lectures on Childhood Emotional Neglect; Managing Overwhelm; Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and Complex Trauma; Responding to Family and Domestic Violence; also ‘Rising from the Ashes,’ for survivors and emergency personnel involved in the Parkerville bushfire in 2014.


Family & Domestic Violence (FDV) Service

Involvement in a variety of FDV related activities includes:

• writing a gender-neutral abusive behaviours screening tool for identifying the extent of FDV taking place in a relationship (2003-present);


• member of Fremantle regional FDV Committee 2004;

• vice-chair of the Eastern Region Domestic Violence Regional Committee (2006) - now known as Domestic Violence Agencies Network (DVAN) - East Metro; 


• delivery of FDV Screening training to staff from Maternity and Antenatal at Armadale Health Service (2009);

• presenting at the annual WA Health Consumer's Conference on FDV initiatives at Armadale Health Service (2011);


• serving on the Armadale Health Service FDV Committee (2008-2011);

• writing the online staff training module on FDV for Armadale Health Service (2009; 2011);

• delivery of FDV screening training to staff from Armadale Health Service Mental Health Social Workers (2012);


• member of the White Ribbon Day Committee - City of Armadale 2011;


• FDV Professional Development provider to: Mental Health Professional Network (Midland); Mental Health Professional Network (Fremantle) and to the WA chapter of the Christian Counsellor's Association in 2013;


• public lecture Responding to FDV in Churches – Connections Counselling – 2016;


• training on trauma and family violence for Diploma students with the Australian Institute of Family Counselling in 2016.

• public lecture Responding to FDV in Churches – Newspring Church - 2017

• MHPN online presentations (2022)

Group Therapy Facilitation

• Group Co-facilitation: Family Abuse Integrated Response (FAIR) group for perpetrators of domestic violence (2004-5);


• Co-facilitating Art as Therapy groups with other Mead Centre Case Managers (2008);


• Other Therapeutic Group Co-facilitation: 'Bradshaw on the Family' Therapy Group (2005);  Parenting Pre-teens Group (2004);  Mum's Support Group (1993); Dad's Support Group (1993).


Community & Education

• Serving on the Sexual Abuse Taskforce for the Western Australian Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (3 years) including assisting in the planning of a three-day conference on Sexual Abuse in Faith Communities;


• Co-authoring Student Support Services accreditation criteria for schools in the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventist Education;


• Training the state/regional administrators of the South Pacific Division of Seventh-day Adventist Education Department in Critical Incident Management;


• Managing a student counselling service for a private College for 5 years;


• Speaking at a New Zealand Teacher's Conference on Critical Incident Management.



Academic & Professional

• Membership on the Curtin University of Technology Vice-Chancellor's List in 2002 in recognition of being in the top 1% of students in the school of Social Work and Social Policy.


• Accredited Mental Health Social Worker status from professional body 2010-present (with Advanced Accreditation).


• Former member of the Mental Health Professional Network (Midland) and Mental Health Professional Network (Fremantle); Mental Health Professional Network (Cancer Patients and their Caregivers)

• Current member of the Perth Complex Trauma Mental Health Professional Network (MHPN); Perth Perth 'Diabetes & Mental Health' MHPN; Perth Veteran-Focussed network MHPN; Perth Borderline Personality Disorder MHPN.

• Former member of the Mental Health Social Workers in Private Practice National Forum.

• Joint-coordinator of the 2016 Mental Health Social Workers in Private Practice National Conference

• Admitted to the Australian College of Social Work Clinical Division (2016; no longer current)

Group and Peer Supervision Provision

• 2006-7 staff peer supervisor Midland Branch of Relationships Australia

• 2016 group supervisor with Connections Counselling