Dr Lissa Johnson
Lissa is the principal of the practice. Her qualifications are a PhD in Psychology and a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology, from the University of New South Wales. She also has a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies, and a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Psychology and Psychobiology), with Honours in Psychology.Lissa has over 15 years counselling experience, and several years experience supervising and training other Clinical Psychologists.
Lissa's key ares of interest and expertise involve relationships and couples therapy, anxiety and anxiety disorders, longstanding life patterns and complex difficulties, trauma and childhood trauma, and self esteem and wellbeing.
With respect to anxiety, Lissa has extenstive experience and specialist training working with social anxiety, fear of public speaking, excessive worry, performance anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, sleep difficulties, health anxiety and generalised anxiety.
With respeect to couples therapy, Lissa has received specialist training from world leaders in couples therapy and research, and is dedicated to best-practice approaches to couples therapy. She works to help couples to turn their problems into vehicles for greater closeness and intimacy. As part of this process she helps couples to understand what drives their problems, gain new perspectives on the issues that divide them, gain new perspectives on their patterns of interaction and ultimately to interact with each other in ways that heal wounds and open new avenues of understanding, engagement and mutual enjoyment.
Other relationship issues that Lissa works with include: dating; relationship breakdown; recurrent patterns in relationships; difficulty forming or maintaining relationships; beginning relationships; learning to relate to others in more constructive ways; and any other difficulties in relationships with partners, colleagues, family or friends.
Other areas of interest and expertise for Lissa include: grief and loss, mood difficulties, stress and work stress, life balance, self-exploration and self-understanding and existential issues.
Lissa has received numerous academic awards, including the University Medal and the Australian Psychological Society Prize. She has taught Psychology to undergraduate students at University, and has presented her honours and doctoral research at national and international conferences. Her PhD research involved self-concept and autobiographical memory, and her honours research examined interactions between immunity, stress, and diet. She has recently completed a research collaboration as an external thesis supervisor for Macquarie University, involving Masters level research that examined autobiographical memory processes in social phobia.
Lissa is frequently contacted for comment by the media. Click here to view recent magazine and newspaper articles in which Lissa has been interviewed
Lissa cares very deeply about the clients of her practice. She is committed to bringing together a team of therapists who are both warm and compassionate, and highly skilled and qualified, adept and understanding and meeting each individual person's needs.
Lissa is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, a member of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy, the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian Psychological Society College of Clinical Psychologists, and the Anxiety Practitioners Network.