Helen Billows
Director & Principal Psychologist
Accredited EMDR practitioner
Accredited EMDR consultant
B. Psych (Hons), MCouns&PsychTh | MEMDRAA, MEMDRIA, MAAPi
Helen is a registered psychologist and a full member of the EMDR Association of Australia and the EMDR International Association. Helen is based in Adelaide, South Australia, and has an office located in Goodwood.
Helen has extensive experience in the use of EMDR with trauma, complex trauma, dissociation, depression and anxiety. Helen is fully trained in EMDR and has completed advanced, specialised training in this area.
Helen's passion is for trauma treatment, and she is fully trained and experienced in
Eye-Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Due to the experience and training Helen has demonstrated, she has been accredited by the EMDR Association of Australia in the use of EMDR therapy.
Helen is also an accredited EMDR consultant, meaning she is able to supervise and offer consultation to other therapists learning this modality.
It's important to know that trauma is not just the big events - anything can cause trauma. For example, if you have been betrayed in a previous relationship, and then when entering a new one, become crippled with fears of your new partner being unfaithful. This is a trauma - the pain of the past is felt in the present. EMDR can help resolve past emotional wounds so that they remain in the past. Commonly, clients will report that they feel physically lighter, as if a weight has lifted - the heaviness of the old wounds are processed and released, for good.
Research has shown that EMDR treatment is not only effective for the resolution of trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but also depression (particularly recurring depression that has not responded to standard therapy).
Helen is also trained in the following therapies:
Mindfulness-Informed Approaches
Helen has run mindfulness groups and also engages regularly in a personal mindfulness practice. Mindfulness helps us look towards ourselves
with curiosity, and see the distance between our emotions/thoughts/impulses and our automatic responses. Mindfulness makes the
unconscious conscious, and encourages us to explore, with compassion and kindness, the patterns that may be keeping us stuck.
See the 'resources' page for a touching animation on how mindfulness empowers us.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
If you're a human, you've likely heard of CBT! CBT is effective for a broad range of mental health concerns and involves interventions that
target thoughts and behaviours that perpetuate patterns of mental unwellness.
Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a derivative of CBT, well known as a recommended treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. Helen has facilitated a DBT group
and is experienced in delivering DBT. Research has shown that DBT skills can also help people who suffer depression and anxiety,
particularly those who haven't responded well to regular CBT.
Parts Therapies/Structural Dissociation
Parts approaches suggest that we can think of ourselves as having different parts - if you've seen the Pixar movie "Inside Out', you get the gist. Have you ever been snuggled at home and received an SMS from a friend inviting you to coffee? One part of you may want to go,
while another part is quite content on the couch. This is an example of how the 'parts' idea plays out. Some parts are well known in pop psychology, such as 'the inner child', 'the people pleaser', 'the perfectionist' and 'the control freak'.
Parts work like this is frequently used in working with complex trauma and dissociation, and as such Helen combines this with
EMDR for clients who have experienced more complex and/or prolonged experiences of trauma.