Healing Inner Conflict

The counselling framework all four of our counsellors work with, alongside their own training.

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Healing Inner Conflict (HIC) works with the parts of us that pull in different directions: the part that shouts at the kids, and the part that is angry with ourselves for doing it.

Our Southern Highlands counsellors bring HIC together with their own training, including Process-Oriented Psychology, Solution Focused Therapy, Gestalt therapy and parts work.

Meet the counsellors

A calm river winds between green banks and tall trees under a soft blue sky. — The river at Berrima

These disturbances are signals of healing trying to happen. In other words, not something going wrong, rather something trying to go right.

From the practice’s description of Healing Inner Conflict

How a session unfolds

Sessions start with one specific moment. Using simple questions, your counsellor helps you notice the signals involved, from the thoughts in your head to the tension in your body, and trace how that reaction was learned, often in childhood or after a later trauma, and why it still shows up today.

Start with one moment

Rather than tackling everything at once, you begin with a single moment that disturbed you.
Notice the signals

Your counsellor helps you notice what was going on: the thoughts in your head, the feelings, the tension in your body.
See where it comes from

Together you trace how that reaction was learned, often in childhood or after a later trauma, and why it still shows up today.
Respond differently

With the pattern in view, you work out what it would take to respond differently next time.

Four common mechanisms

All of the methods used in HIC are based on the simplicity of the natural world. In the same way that there are developmental stages in the life cycle, so too the four most common disturbing internal mechanisms match these stages.

Child mechanism

An internal override of unique expression.
Adolescent mechanism

An attempt to override externally.
Adult mechanism

An override of the adolescent mechanism.
Self-medication and distraction

An attempt to override seemingly overwhelming feelings.

In sessions you learn to notice these mechanisms as they happen, in the moments you get triggered.

What it feels like to work this way

One moment at a time

Rather than tackling everything at once, you start with a single moment that disturbed you and work outward from there.
No part of you is the enemy

Conflicting parts are treated as ways you have tried to protect yourself, not as faults to fix. That takes the shame out of it.
Understanding, then change

The aim isn’t simply to understand how a pattern developed or to manage its symptoms. It’s to show you how to recognise what is happening and repeatedly respond differently, creating meaningful and lasting change.