Lois Whiteman Counselling and Psychotherapy

24/09/2025

I have recently read two books that I think are worth mentioning. The first is, The Absent Father Effect on daughters: Father Desire, Father Wounds by Susan E Schwartz, a Jungian therapist. In this book Schwartz sensitively and with extensive knowledge and experience, explores this common but little researched topic. She not only looks at the individual issues but reflects clearly on the societal role in the creation of the roles in families, and the subsequent relationship dynamics that manifest. The absent father is not one who is just physically absent but includes those physically present but emotionally unreachable and/or punitive. The material she offers is also useful in considering father/son relationships.
The second book is Shame and grace by Patricia De Young. In this book De Young, a psychotherapist, examines these themes by providing her own personal life story alongside theoretical considerations, cultural, gender and societal roles. Her courage to honestly open up to readers her own story is refreshing and enormously helpful.
Both of these book would be a useful read to counsellors as well as any human service workers and even those in organisational/systemic work whoa re interested in thinking about how the personal effects of trauma may play out in a systemic context.

21/05/2025

Returning to The Still Centre of The Self
An Online Live Course for Counsellors and Therapists
1 ½ hours per week for 5 Weeks

Everyday in your work you hold therapeutic space for clients, offer deep and attentive listening, facilitate reflection and discovery, provide true empathy. This takes energy and without nourishing yourself can lead to a sense of depletion.
This course is your opportunity to rejuvenate the Self of the Therapist. In this course, you will be guided through a range of experiential processes to discharge what needs to be let go of, reflect and learn about yourself, come back to your Centre.
The Sessions will be as follows:
• Embodiment: Inhabiting the Intelligence of the Body: guided body awareness, gentle movement, and deep relaxation.
• Use of Mandala making to restore balance and order internally.
• A process for working with your night dreams to harness the wisdom they contain.
• Exploring the Shadow and the power this has in creating a whole and balanced sense of Self.
• Who are You Now and who are you becoming? Use of the form of house/home, the Universal Symbol of the Self: a creative imagining using the visual arts, poetry, prose writing
The course is a closed group limited to 10 participants to allow the development of a safe space. It is offered as a whole. If you would like to register but are unable to come to all sessions, all course material and back up support are offered by the course facilitator to ensure you can benefit from the whole course.
You will need a quiet uninterrupted space. A list of resources required for each session will be provided in the week prior to the session. E.g. notepad, drawing paper, coloured pencils, paint, yoga mat or similar.
There will be opportunity for discussion, questions and sharing.
Investment: $400.00 by 10 July 2025
Early Bird: $350.00 by 30 June 2025
When: 5 consecutive Saturdays from 19 July to 23 August
Time: 11:00 to 12:30pm EST Brisbane Australia
Your Facilitator: Lois Whiteman: I am a qualified social worker and practicing psychotherapist of 40 years’ experience. I am also a qualified yoga teacher of 25 years. My life’s work includes complex trauma therapy, professional supervision and training in both therapy and yoga. I have an interest in Jungian theory, depth psychology and the use of symbolic and somatic expression.
To register please email: loiswhiteman@yahoo.com.au

Lois Whiteman is a social worker in Brisbane with 30 years experience treating depression, anxiety and trauma using Mindfulness, Yoga and Dreamwork.

14/07/2022

Working with Dreams That Emerge From Sleep
An informative, experiential and interactive workshop to give you the tools to make sense of dreams and draw on their wisdom.

Why would you take time to come to a Workshop on Dreams?
In Western Psychology the dreams one has at night are considered “the royal road to the unconscious”.
Dreams give access what is not yet conscious in the form of images and story. Light is shed on matters of life being grappled with at the time, paving the way to insight, a precursor to change.
Dreams have their own language, the language of symbol just as a painting or a piece of music does – they speak to us if we can only find a way to hear or receive what they are saying.
Dreams address everyday dilemmas, inner and outer conflicts, life traumas, past and present events which are affecting life now.
They reveal psychological patterns impacting on life and give guidance through times of change and significant life stages.
Understanding dreams reveal a richer tapestry of meaning and provide direction at times of uncertainty.
Who is this workshop aimed at?
Counsellors and Therapists: this workshop will give you a practical and valuable tool to explore dreams with your clients adding to the depth of the therapeutic process.
Anyone interested in learning how to gain wisdom and guidance from their dreams.
For those practicing yoga, dreams are also noted in the Yoga Sutras. In recounting the ways conscious awakened life is achieved the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali instruct: “Awakening also can come by letting the mind be grounded in insights that have arisen from dreams” (Yoga Sutras 1:38)
Your Workshop Facilitator: Lois Whiteman, psychotherapist with forty years’ experience in psychotherapy, professional supervision, and training. She is a Level 2 Registered Yoga Teacher with 19 years teaching experience. Lois brings a unique and creative way to add richness and depth to life through dreamwork.
In this workshop you will learn:
Why human beings dream?
How dreams have been understood throughout history and across cultures.
A map for understanding the inner self (the psyche or soul) and how this manifests symbolically in dreams.
A simple and playful process for making sense of your dreams.
Practice at applying what you learn to one of your dreams.
(There will be opportunity for individual reflection and sharing if you choose.)
This workshop will be presented via Zoom in two, three-hour sessions over two weeks. The first is a prerequisite for the second.
Investment: $225 for both workshops ie 6 hours
This covers the live training, handouts for dreamwork, after training brief consultations via email on the topic.
Dates: Wednesday 24th and Wednesday 31h August
Time: 9.00 to 12.00 noon on the scheduled days
To register and for more information contact Lois on 0449 882 488; loiswhiteman@yahoo.com.au; www.loiswhitemanpsychotherapy.com.au
Registration is confirmed only with full payment.
Cancellations after 10 August will incur a cancellation fee.

Lois Whiteman is a social worker in Brisbane with 30 years experience treating depression, anxiety and trauma using Mindfulness, Yoga and Dreamwork.

21/12/2019

Receive our latest video releases and news: http://bit.ly/pfcnewsletter In the beginning of 2010, the Playing For Change crew began work on a new Song Around...

04/12/2019

Donna Farhi, Keynote speaker at the IYTA conference in 2017, She speaks eloquently and wisely about the what yoga really is.

Donna Farhi, Keynote speech from the IYTA 50th anniversary conference at Sydney Town Hall October, 2017. Tradition, Innovation & Evolution - What makes yoga....

10/10/2019

NEW COURSE 2020!!
The Depth of Yoga:
Yoga’s Holistic Approach to Life as Instructed in the The Eight Limbs of Yoga Yoga Sutras

Six, two and a half hour sessions, one per month, over six months + a one day retreat

IF YOU MISSED OUT LAST YEAR, REGISTER NOW

Commencing 1 February 2020

Feedback from the 2019 Course:
The course has given me a “great resource to bring to my teaching of yoga and to share with other yoga enthusiasts.” (Yoga teacher participant)
“I think about yoga less as (just) a physical practice after this course. The material is so useful to life in general as well as in a yoga class.”
“Thank you for your kind and compassionate teaching.”

To Register: Please contact the course facilitator, Lois Whiteman at: loiswhiteman@yahoo.com.au. Registration and payment details will then be provided.

11/08/2019

The 2019 Yoga Course on the Eight Limbs of Yoga concluded with a full day retreat in the quiet of Mercy Place amongst the trees and birds on the slopes of Mt Cootha. Here are some of the comments made in the evaluations:
"I can bring more ease into yoga poses; I feel more able to work with breath (pranayama), I judge myself less now; I learnt the value of withdrawing the senses (Pratyahara); I learnt practical skills for meditation; I leant the importance of intention and mindfulness in asana practice and life; I learnt how the breath can help with anxiety; I will bring the yamas and niyamas into my practice and daily life (the value base of yoga, the external and internal observances); I learnt to move more slowly with greater emphasis and understanding of why a yoga pose is as it is; I learnt how to better quiet my mind and concentrate."
"Now I think about yoga less as a physical practice after this course, the material is so useful to life in general not just in a yoga class."
"The course material is a great resource to bring to my (yoga) teaching and to (share) with other yoga enthusiasts."
"Thank you for your kind and compassionate teaching."

23/05/2019

New additions to my website!! Updated information about yoga services including yoga therapy; individual yoga classes; yoga courses to deepen knowledge about the depths yoga can offer, as well as specific training for yoga teachers and counsellor/psychotherapists about how yoga works to heal from psychological trauma Please click on the link on this page to visit my website!

10/04/2019

The International FASSTT Conference on Refugee Trauma convened by The Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma was a huge success. Feedback rated the workshops and keynote speakers highly. My workshop on The Place of Yoga in Trauma Recovery was well attended. We explored yogic ideas, how trauma is held in the body causing ongoing somatic and emotional pain and how it can be released in safe supported ways. We talked, contemplated and explored the teachings on the yoga mats!

11/03/2019

The newly renovated yoga room for yoga therapy and individual yoga classes. The website will soon be updated with details on these services.

11/03/2019

The Workbook for the Yoga Sutras course.

11/03/2019

Yoga Updates! The Yoga Course based on the 8 Limbs of the Yoga Sutras is well underway with a full house. Each month we look at one limb of yoga thoroughly. For more information contact me through my website. This course is likely to be run again in 2020.

27th March 2019. I am presenting a 1/2 day workshop for counsellors and yoga teachers on "The Place of Yoga in Trauma Recovery" at the FASSTT International Conference in Brisbane. There are still places left. Register at www.FASSTT.org.au.