Welcome. My name is Mark Johnson, I am a doctor with more than twenty years experience and work exclusively in the field of mental illness and wellbeing in addition to being a medical educator.
My initial training was at Sydney University and has continued with organisations including the Tavistock Clinic/University of Essex UK, CG Jung Institute Zurich, International Society of Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Phoenix Australia (PTSD), the Bowlby Centre UK, British Association for Psychopharmacology and the Interpersonal Psychotherapy Institute, USA.
My aim is to work with you so that you are empowered to recover and function to your fullest potential. Decisions are made together and only after enough time has been spent correctly understanding what challenges are being faced.
‘Enough time’ is most important. The journey to recovery and wellness takes time. I do not believe I can come to know you and understand your hopes and dreams within a traditional 15-minute consult. If I have not seen you before our initial meeting will be for 40 minutes, the purpose being to meet and get a basic idea of what may be required and assess my capacity to help. If that is to our mutual satisfaction then we proceed to further appointments to start exploring the issues in depth. Very often we will need a few before we can arrive at a shared understanding of the issues and the way forward.
Taking time also allows a trusted safe space to be created within which difficult things can be explored in a sensitive, honouring way. It is only in this way that you can be ‘seen and heard’; something that many people have never really experienced.
After we have come to understand what the path to wellness may look like, we will first turn our attention to how we can use different types of psychotherapy (talking therapy) and / or medication to facilitate healing.
Medication will only be used when needed and after we have explored all the questions about side effects and benefits. It is a decision that we will make together.
Where necessary other professionals such as psychologists and psychiatrists can be worked with using a team approach.