There can be many people involved in your care and still very few opportunities to speak about what matters to you.
An appointment may be devoted to your funding. An assessment may describe what you cannot do. A meeting may bring together people who want to help, while you struggle to find a place in the conversation.
You may need that assistance. You may also want someone to ask what it is like to be you: to depend on others, to have your difficulties documented, to want things that do not fit easily into the language of a support plan.
I am Bita Riazati, a registered psychologist and board-approved supervisor. At Bita Psychology, I work with adults, adolescents and children in Hawthorn and Belgrave, Melbourne, in English and Persian. My approach is informed by psychoanalysis.
For people enquiring about NDIS psychology, we begin by considering your circumstances, the support you are seeking, and whether the proposed work is suitable for your plan.
The effort involved in receiving help
Receiving help can involve considerable work.
You may have to answer unfamiliar questions, organise transport, manage changing appointments or explain something painful to another new person. You might agree during a meeting because you feel overwhelmed, then realise afterwards that you wanted to say something different.
When services describe someone as difficult to engage, I want to understand what makes engagement difficult.
Does an appointment feel like an examination? Have previous disclosures led to consequences you did not expect? Is the language confusing? Does accepting help feel connected with losing control?
These questions cannot be answered from a referral alone.
My experience in community mental health, addiction services, schools and private practice informs my attention to what it takes for someone to arrive, remain in the room and begin speaking.
When other people’s descriptions follow you
Words written about a person can travel between services for years.
A report might describe withdrawal, limited insight, poor motivation or challenging behaviour. Such descriptions may communicate observations, but they leave questions unanswered.
What happened before the person withdrew? What are they being asked to accept? What makes an ordinary interaction feel impossible?
I take relevant clinical information seriously while leaving room for you to disagree with how you have been understood.
You may recognise some descriptions and feel misrepresented by others. You may have begun using professional terms because they are the words available, even though they do not quite convey your experience.
In our sessions, there is time to consider what those words mean to you and what they leave out.
Listening to the small details
My psychoanalytic listening attends to the particulars of what you say.
For example, “I cannot go outside” and “I cannot bear people seeing me outside” describe different difficulties. “I need help” can sit alongside “I cannot stand being watched.” Those differences matter when considering what support may be useful.
I listen for the circumstances in which something becomes unbearable, the words that recur, and the arrangements that already make life more manageable.
Sometimes an interpretation involves returning a phrase to you or drawing attention to a distinction that had passed unnoticed. It should be grounded in your speech and responsive to how you experience the conversation.
There is no need to produce an impressive explanation. An ordinary detail may give us somewhere important to begin.
When questions themselves feel intrusive
Being asked to explain yourself is not always experienced as care.
If you have repeatedly been assessed, doubted or required to justify your needs, another question may feel demanding. If relationships have been frightening or unpredictable, someone’s interest may be difficult to trust.
I take this into account in how I work.
The pace, timing and form of an intervention matter. Sometimes further exploration is useful. Sometimes the work requires restraint: allowing a statement to stand, clarifying a misunderstanding, or respecting that something cannot be discussed that day.
I pay attention to what helps you remain steady and what increases distress.
You do not have to recount every painful experience to establish that you deserve to be heard.
Needing assistance and having a say
Depending on others can create difficult situations.
You may be grateful for a support worker and still need more privacy. You may love a family member and disagree with their decisions. You may worry that expressing dissatisfaction will put an essential relationship at risk.
Psychological work can provide a place to speak about these tensions.
We might consider what happens when you try to refuse something, how you communicate a preference, or why a particular exchange repeatedly ends in distress.
The aim is to help you find words for what you want, what troubles you and where your limits are.
Where involvement from carers or other professionals is appropriate, we would discuss its purpose and the relevant consent arrangements. Your perspective remains important within that work.
Disadvantage belongs in the conversation
It is difficult to think about the future when housing is insecure or money does not cover necessities.
Disability may exist alongside unemployment, racism, family violence, migration or isolation. These circumstances affect what is possible. They deserve to be acknowledged without turning every obstacle into an individual psychological problem. However individual long term psychotherapy in melbourne may give relief after speaking to a lacanian psychoanalyst registered psychologist in Australia.
I cannot remove structural disadvantage through a conversation. I can take it seriously rather than asking you to speak as though it were irrelevant.
This also means considering the demands of therapy itself: getting to appointments, understanding arrangements, finding privacy online and managing costs.
A workable arrangement begins with the life you are actually living.
What matters in everyday life
Where support is appropriate under an NDIS plan, we would identify the disability-related needs being addressed and consider how the work relates to everyday functioning.
The concern may be maintaining contact with others, communicating needs, managing changes in support arrangements or taking part in something personally meaningful.
Your existing ways of managing deserve attention too.
A particular routine, interest or familiar place may help organise your day. Before assuming it needs changing, I want to understand what it makes possible for you.
We would review the usefulness of the work against agreed goals. Those goals need to have meaning in your life, with room to recognise both developments and continuing difficulties.
Something modest on paper may matter considerably: being able to tell a support worker that an arrangement is uncomfortable, remain in a conversation after a disagreement, or explain why a particular activity matters. We would consider these developments in context, without assuming that everyone should move towards the same version of independence.
Persian-speaking psychology and cultural understanding
I offer sessions in English and Persian, also called Farsi.
Navigating disability services in a second language can make it difficult to correct an assumption or explain why an arrangement feels uncomfortable.
Family involvement, privacy and receiving assistance may also carry meanings that are not obvious to someone outside your circumstances.
Speaking Persian can provide room for these details. You may prefer English or find that different experiences are easier to express in different languages.
Sharing a language does not mean I already understand your life. It gives us another way to begin listening carefully.
Clarifying NDIS funding before beginning
NDIS funding and mental health treatment have different purposes. Eligible psychology supports may address disability-related functioning and participation. Psychotherapy provided to treat a mental health condition is generally a health-system responsibility and is not automatically claimable through an NDIS plan.
Before beginning, we would clarify the proposed service, funding arrangements, relevant provider requirements and fees. Supports must meet applicable NDIS funding criteria, including evidence requirements. The other option is the medicare mental health care plan with your gp for 10 medicare bulkbill psychology sessions melbourne. My psychoanalytic orientation does not itself establish eligibility for funding.
You are welcome to contact Bita Psychology to discuss support in Hawthorn, Belgrave or online by prior arrangement.
You may have spent considerable time explaining why you need help. There should also be room to speak about what you want that help to make possible.