A Day in the Life with Registered Clinical Psychotherapist – Jodie Gale

I am a PACFA Accredited Clinical Supervisor, a Master’s qualified Eco-Psycho-Spiritual Registered Clinical Psychotherapist®️ and volunteer as the Deputy Convenor of the PACFA College of Psychotherapy. I have been in private practice for almost 25 years.

In my psychotherapy practice, I specialise in women’s early childhood trauma, emotional neglect, and food, weight, and body image concerns. In my business coaching and clinical supervision practice, I specialise in helping counsellors and psychotherapists build thriving, private-pay, private practices.

I came to this work after having what Maslow terms a ‘peak spiritual experience’ while swimming with Fungie, the wild dolphin, off the West Coast of Ireland in Dingle Harbour. I was living in London at the time, and this experience catapulted me into long-term, weekly depth psychotherapy, where I recovered from addiction and an eating disorder.

Having been in psychotherapy 1-3 times a week for about four years, I decided to train as a psychotherapist myself. I had a few false starts - one year of psychology - it was too medical, and six months of social work – it was too Dickensian - but I finally found my true calling in a 4-year Psychosynthesis Psychotherapeutic Counselling Diploma. I then continued to the depth psychotherapy training resulting in a Master of Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy through Middlesex University, which took eight years in total to complete: over 1,000 hours of training, 500 clinical hours, 75 group and individual supervisions, 220 group forum and right relations group therapy hours, and well over 160 hours of personal Psychosynthesis psychotherapy. My Master thesis was titled Call off the Search: Eating Disorders, A Symptom of Psychospiritual Crisis. My psychotherapy training, as Roberto Assagioli calls it, was a long and arduous journey of the Soul.

In 2006, I returned home from London to Sydney. After failing to find “psychotherapist” in the phone book, I experienced a major career crisis and completed a Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Sydney, believing I needed the qualification to offer Medicare rebates and build a successful practice. I soon discovered that this wasn’t necessary, nor was Medicare aligned with psychotherapy. With a solid foundation in my robust psychotherapy training, a certain je ne sais quoi, and some business coaching, I was off and running!

My family, my husband, two teenagers, and I - live on Gayamaygal and Gadigal Country, also known as the Northern Beaches of Sydney. During the pandemic, I experienced a Dark Night of the Soul - an existential crisis. I was a member of many US and UK counselling groups where therapists were losing family members, friends, and clients to COVID-19. Hearing about so much death and despair, I felt relieved to be in lockdown. It provided an opportunity for me to train in nature therapy from 2021 to 2022, which was a wonderful, healing experience. I participated daily in ecotherapy exercises - great for my kids too, who often joined me rather than doing their 80-slide PowerPoint school lessons! I suppose you could say I “unschooled” them for a while!

I now balance being a full-time stay-at-home mother with running a part-time, home-office private practice. I’ve reduced my practice to six weekly, depth psychotherapy clients and four private practice coaching / supervision clients per week. I see clients on Mondays and Fridays and run private practice building clinics on Saturday mornings. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are my personal psychotherapy, admin, and PACFA volunteer days, so I thought I’d share with you a typical non-client day!

A Day in the Life with Jodie

7am: Wake Up & Morning Routine
7am: Wake Up & Morning Routine I have two teenagers, a 14-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, so my morning is spent making breakfast, packing lunchboxes, and dropping them to school for an 8:55am start. Today, I’m super organised and whip up Delia Smith’s Celery and Celeriac Soup along with Celeriac and Lancashire Cheese Bread for dinner tonight. I’m fairly impressed with myself as cooking dinner before school drop off is an extremely rare occurrence!

I’m usually done with the morning routine (apart from school drop off) by 8am, so I check my emails and post the daily prompt in one of my Facebook groups for counsellors and psychotherapists, Opening the Door on Private Practice. Today’s prompt is on Movie Therapy, focusing on the Netflix series Eric. Movie Therapy is a modality I participated in CPD last year. It’s a wonderful tool to help bring depth to my clinical work and personal life.

9:15: Breakfast & Nature Therapy
9:15: Breakfast & Nature Therapy I’ve learned over the years that if I want a peaceful breakfast, it either must happen at 6am (which is a hard no for me) or after the kids are at school. So, around 9:15, I arrive at Manly Dam with some still-warm celeriac bread, butter, and a flask of Earl Grey tea. Oops - the whole loaf of bread didn’t quite make it to dinner 😉.

Manly Dam is where I spent every day during the pandemic doing my two-hour nature therapy practice.  Today, I sit by the lily pond, pull out the Kali card (no. 33), and reflect. I recently trained in Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) with Lauren Brittain, and I am currently participating in 10 weekly, personal sessions with her before using EFT with clients. Before our last session, Lauren drew the Kali card, which speaks to love and compassion. So today, I place my hand on my heart, as the card suggests, and practise love and compassion for myself - using cards in this way is a great reminder for when I forget, which I do! I finish off my nature practice by listening to the kookaburras and colouring in a floral-themed image.

10:30am: Social Media & Emails
I spend about 15 minutes checking in on my Facebook groups - em>Opening the Door on Private Practice and Psychotherapy in Australia - and catch up on client emails.

11am: Interview with Carolyn Costin
In 2017, I trained as a Lived Experience Eating Disorder Coach, with Carolyn Costin, the founder of the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Treatment Centre in the US and author of  The 8 Keys to Eating Disorder Recovery. Today, she’s interviewing me about how I’ve integrated coaching into my psychotherapy practice. After we adopted our kids at 11 months and 2.5 years, I found that working in a full practice of long-term, depth psychotherapy clients wasn’t always compatible with family life. Coaching has allowed me to work more flexibly, and we discuss how that balance has worked in my practice.

12pm: Meeting with PBANZ
As Deputy Convenor of PACFA’s College of Psychotherapy, I spend a fair amount of time volunteering for PACFA. Today, we have a meeting with the Psychotherapists Board of Aotearoa New Zealand (PBANZ) to discuss the regulation of psychotherapy in NZ and how it impacted the profession over there. Martha, who is leading the College of Psychotherapy competencies project, joins the meeting with Janet from PBANZ and PACFA CEO, Johanna de Wever. We affirm what a hard time transition is for the field when raising standards but have a rich conversation about the differences and similarities between psychotherapy in Australia and New Zealand.

1pm: Lunch
Working from home has its perks - like being able to make whatever I want for lunch. I have either a Yum-Box, or plate of bento-box-style lunch that’s basically an assortment of all my favourite little bits and bobs. As a recovered, lived experience eating disorder therapist, making sure I have wholesome food is important for my self-care, especially on client days when I work back-to-back with 10 minutes between sessions. I take my lunch back to my office, check in on my FB groups and other social media, and get ready for the afternoon.

2pm: Business Product Administration
This afternoon is all about updating my private practice paperwork products and yearlyTherapy Awareness Day Calendar and Planner for Therapists to update in my Etsy shop. Creating products and courses is how I have diversified my practice since reducing my depth psychotherapy clients.

4pm: Homework Help
4pm: Homework Help The kids are home from school, and the homework saga begins. As a parent who was involved in getting rid of homework at primary school, I’m still not a fan. In the kids’ words, “homework sucks the guts out of our free time”  - if I could banish it from high school too, I absolutely would. But for now, I help the kids get started….

5:30pm: Dinner
When the kids first came to us, we had the help of a wonderful Mothercraft nurse who specialised in siblings and attachment. She gave us a routine for meals, bath, and bed that we’ve largely stuck to all these years, with some age-appropriate tweaks. Tonight, we have the soup and bread I made earlier. I’ve been vegetarian since the Cranks style 80s, so dinner is usually veggie unless the kids pick out a meat option from a Hello Fresh delivery - Bibimbap is their family fave.

6pm: Bath Therapy
This is my sacred time for self-care. I create a ritual around my bath using products such as the Dr. Hauschka’s Sage Bath Oil. I’m an avid audiobook listener, so I’ll either tune into a book or a podcast -This Jungian Lifeis a favourite. Right now, I’m listening toThe Seven Skins of Esther Wilding, a novel based on Selkie tales, which ties in nicely with a CPD workshop I’m attending later this year on the same theme. A good audio book and a relaxing bath - what’s not to love?

7pm: Family TV Time
We gather as a family to watch something on TV. Our favourites include MasterChef, The Block, The Voice, Alone, Hunted, or Gogglebox. There’s always some family commentary about what’s happening on screen. We had Grandma come and stay when she broke her ribs, and she said we could easily be on Gogglebox ourselves with the amount of banter that flies around.

8pm: Books & Bedtime
The kids head up to get ready for bed, which usually sparks a mini battle over who gets the bathroom first for their skincare routine. They read for an hour or so and they’re usually in bed by 9 or 9:30pm, leaving me to dive back into work for a bit. With the College of Psychotherapy reopening for applications, I spend some time researching pages of international psychotherapy competencies and I send my list off to Martha & Ermanno, who are collating the team’s contributions.

9pm: Binge Drama
My husband and I wind down with some quality TV drama. We’re currently watching Firefly Lane, which has a brilliant portrayal of complex trauma. Our go-to genre is Nordic Noir, but we’ve watched most of the popular series, so we’re always on the lookout for the next binge-worthy show.

11pm: Bedtime
Finally, it’s time to head to bed. One whole wall of our bedroom is covered with a nature cave mural, making it feel like I’m stepping into the underworld of the forest. I’ve got a stuffy nose, so I turn on my oregano essential oil diffuser - my go-to remedy for sinus congestion as it has antibacterial and antifungal properties - it helps me breathe easier as I drift off to sleep.

Connect with Jodie

Website: https://psychosynthesis.online/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/psychosynthesis

Open the Door on Your Day

The ‘Day in the Life’ series is created and edited by PACFA Registered Clinical Psychotherapist® and founder of The Psychosynthesis Centre, Jodie Gale.

Each month, the ‘A Day in the Life’ series will offer participating PACFA members the opportunity to share their unique personal and professional experience as dedicated Practising & Registered Clinical Counsellors and Registered Clinical Psychotherapists who embody the art and science of holding space for others. Click here to read more and to find out how you can open the door on your day.