Counselling Wollongong

Counselling Wollongong Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Counselling Wollongong, Mental Health Service, Suite 15, Central Chambers, 157 Crown Street, Wollongong.

🧠 Book a Counseling Session with Jacob Today!
✨ Healing Inner Conflict (HIC) is a simple and powerful way to explore the 4 core mechanics behind why we do what we do — both inside and out. 🌱 Start your journey toward lasting change.

Everyone deserves a space where they feel heard, understood, and supported.At Counselling Wollongong, our experienced co...
10/03/2026

Everyone deserves a space where they feel heard, understood, and supported.

At Counselling Wollongong, our experienced counsellors are here to help individuals and couples navigate life’s challenges with compassion, understanding, and evidence based approaches.

✨ Jacob Montoya – An experienced and compassionate counsellor with over a decade of experience helping individuals, couples, and young people create meaningful change through Healing Inner Conflict (HIC) principles.

✨ Amna Pervais – A Gestalt therapist with nearly 10 years of experience supporting people through stress, grief, and personal challenges.

Whether you are facing personal struggles, relationship challenges, or simply seeking clarity and growth, our team is here to support your journey toward a healthier and more fulfilling life.

Take the first step toward better wellbeing.

🌐 Learn more or book a session:
www.counsellingwollongong.com.au

Why do we need a healthy relationship with sadness? 💙🌧️Because most of us don’t actually have one.When we can’t tolerate...
19/02/2026

Why do we need a healthy relationship with sadness? 💙🌧️

Because most of us don’t actually have one.

When we can’t tolerate sadness, we spend our lives trying to avoid it —
people-pleasing
controlling
overworking 💼,
numbing 🍷,
staying “strong” 💪.

Instead of simply being sad about what’s sad (loss, change, limits, unmet needs 💔), we try to control the outside world.

💙 But much of life isn’t controllable.

As children, avoiding sadness made sense 🧒. We were dependent.
We couldn’t leave. We couldn’t enforce boundaries.
Suppressing feelings helped us survive.

As adults, we have options ✨.
We can set boundaries. We can leave 🚶‍♀️.
We can protect ourselves 🛡️. That’s resourcefulness.

Yet if we still fear sadness, we’ll stay stuck in old survival patterns 🔁.

Sadness itself won’t destroy us. The fear of it might 🌊.

When we turn toward our sadness and say:
“Your feelings matter. You’re allowed to cry 😢. I’ve got you.” 🤍

Something softens 🌿
Relief appears 🌤️
Clarity appears
Healthy boundaries become possible.

When sadness is welcomed, it no longer has to shout. 🌈

🧠 The 4 Survival Mechanisms in Healing Inner Conflict (HIC)When we’re hurt early in life, we build layers of protection ...
30/05/2025

🧠 The 4 Survival Mechanisms in Healing Inner Conflict (HIC)

When we’re hurt early in life, we build layers of protection to survive. These become automatic — and often keep us stuck.
Here are the 4 core mechanisms we explore in HIC work:

1️⃣ CHILD – Internal Override
Inner critic forms to suppress emotion and stay safe.
🗣️ “Don’t cry. Don’t speak. Stay small.”

2️⃣ ADOLESCENT – External Override
Rebellion kicks in to push back against control.
🗯️ “You can’t tell me what to do!”

3️⃣ ADULT – Override of the Adolescent
Keeps peace by suppressing truth, often passive-aggressive.
😶 “Fine.” (But seething inside.)

4️⃣ SELF-DISTRACTION – Override of Overwhelm
Addiction, scrolling, or numbing to avoid feeling.
📱 “I can’t deal. I need to check out.”

And when even distraction fails, deep shutdown or suicidality can emerge — the ultimate override.

🌱 These are not flaws. They’re survival strategies.
Healing begins when we meet them with curiosity, not judgment.
Which one do you notice most in yourself?

What is inner conflict?Inner conflict arises when one part of you feels disturbed by something that didn’t go as planned...
27/03/2025

What is inner conflict?

Inner conflict arises when one part of you feels disturbed by something that didn’t go as planned. For example, "I am angry with myself for shouting at the kids." To notice this, pay attention to how your body, thoughts, and feelings react when life doesn't align with your expectations.

Start by narrowing down the disturbance to a specific moment, like, "I am angry at myself for shouting at the kids yesterday at 3:30pm." Diagnosing inner conflict means understanding the symptoms—such as the recurring thoughts or emotions—and exploring what’s behind them to bring clarity and healing.

Breaking Free from Childhood ConditioningEver hesitate to express yourself out of fear? This stems from a learned surviv...
13/03/2025

Breaking Free from Childhood Conditioning

Ever hesitate to express yourself out of fear? This stems from a learned survival mechanism. As kids, if expressing sadness or desire led to criticism, an Anger/Intimidation part silenced the Sadness/Expressive part, creating a Fear/Paralysed part to ensure compliance.

This once-protective pattern now blocks authentic expression. By recognizing its roots—perhaps childhood moments of rejection—we see it's no longer needed. With awareness and sensitivity, we can integrate these parts, shifting from fear-based paralysis to authentic self-expression.

"Stop, or I am leaving."Your inner child needs proof that you can protect yourself now. Practice setting boundaries with...
06/03/2025

"Stop, or I am leaving."

Your inner child needs proof that you can protect yourself now. Practice setting boundaries with a safe person who can help you reinforce that you can walk away from what doesn’t serve you. With time, your nervous system will trust that you are safe. 💛

In order to be able to bring permission and encouragement for the expression of all feelings this must include anger, fe...
27/02/2025

In order to be able to bring permission and encouragement for the expression of all feelings this must include anger, fear and sadness. Luckily, paralysis's the expression of fear so there is nothing to express. However, both most of the usual forms of expression of anger and sadness are culturally frowned upon. This is the opposite of permission and encouragement. Thus, the associated sensitive cult in the present moment must show the trained in childhood parts how to express anger and sadness in a healthy way.

The aim of these exercises is to show the parts for whom it was a bad idea to express anger in an early childhood context, that in this present moment there are ways and means of expressing that are very healthy and that don’t involve anyone getting hurt. For most people ‘when someone gets angry, someone gets hurt’. By getting the Associated Sensitive part to encourage the Anger/Intimidation part to express its anger in a safe environment, it is able to experience a whole new paradigm where feelings are able to be expressed fully, intensely, physically and in a somewhat contained way (i.e., where no body and property gets hurt).

What things are you Unlearning? would love to hear you commentsif you need support though this process, contact Jacob or...
18/04/2023

What things are you Unlearning? would love to hear you comments

if you need support though this process, contact Jacob or Amna today at https://www.counsellingwollongong.com.au
after hours and online appointments available

Often, after many years or decades of arguments mostly full of attack and counterattack, including every insensitive met...
18/04/2023

Often, after many years or decades of arguments mostly full of attack and counterattack, including every insensitive method known to humanity, one or both come to couple counselling disaffected and usually with a large amount of justifiable hopelessness, often hidden under a thin veil of not wanting to look like they are not trying.

Many come with a rational sense of: ‘if we can’t deal with this stuff ourselves, how the heck are you going to be able to help us?’. Unfortunately, in many cases they will be right, including when using HIC as a modality. However, teaching the basic principles of HIC in a couple setting, along with a few additional skills that are simple to learn and practice, at least the couple can develop a clear idea of what is required of each of them individually and both of them collectively if they are going to have a fighting chance at maintaining an effective, sensitive, mutually beneficial relationship.

Contact Jacob and Amna today and book your appointment through our online portal at.
https://www.counsellingwollongong.com.au

Do you need help to create a fulfilling life. Jacob and Amna are here to help. We offer help to understand the context o...
18/04/2023

Do you need help to create a fulfilling life.
Jacob and Amna are here to help.
We offer help to understand the context on which your predicament emerges. Rather than do things the typical way, we’ve created a system designed around our patients’ needs. Healing Inner Conflict (HIC) offers clients tangible results in a relatively short time frame.
Available for phone and after hours appointments.

Address

Suite 15, Central Chambers, 157 Crown Street
Wollongong, NSW
2500

Opening Hours

Thursday 8am - 6pm
Saturday 8am - 1pm

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