About
Hello!
I'm Laima (pronounced lie-mah), and I'm both a Registered Psychologist and Registered Marriage Celebrant. I created Being Community Psychology as a space to work with clients seeking to cultivate a more fulfilling existence.
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Registered Psychologist
My practise as an AHPRA Registered Psychologist uses a range of evidence-based therapies through a lens of Existentialism: exploration of how and why we exist, and how we can make our lives more meaningful and fulfilling.
I've worked with a wide range of adults and couples, including working in private, government and not-for-profit; FIFO, first response and defense force settings; from teenagers to older adults; from anxiety and depression, to bereavement, to relationship concerns, to trauma.
I was lucky enough to complete my training with Lidia Genovese, a Clinical, Counselling and Developmental Psychologist specialising in developmental trauma and PTSD, giving me a particular passion for this area. Please click the 'Therapeutic Approach' button below to learn more about the evidence-based therapies I regularly use:
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Registered Marriage Celebrant
Several years ago a couple of close friends asked me to facilitate their overseas wedding ceremony. I really enjoyed learning about how their relationship had evolved, what symbols and rituals they had chosen for their wedding ceremony, and writing a ceremony that highlighted their personal meaning behind their marriage. Afterwards I was asked to do the same thing by several other friends and family members, and it sparked the idea to complete the training so that I could legally solemnise weddings.
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To pardon the pun, I believe that psychology and celebrancy are a marriage made in heaven. Both draw on deeply exploring what is personally meaningful and important, what is our own definition of a life well-lived, and work to translate these values into something concrete that we can see, hear, feel, touch and do in our real life. I believe rituals and ceremonies such as weddings, memorial services and naming ceremonies are powerful tools for creating connection and fulfillment in our lives, and really enjoy creating meaningful, personalised ceremonies for others.
Mission & Vision
Mission
Being’s mission is to provide warm, engaging, accessible, science-lead psychological and community services that support humans in being their own personally defined, actualised selves.
Vision
Being sees mental health and wellbeing as an inseparable aspect of physical, envrionmental, spiritual and communal wellbeing, and therefore envisions a world in which mental health services and community services complement and uplift each other.
Why a Terrarium?
Existentialism is a philosophical approach to psychological practise which emphasises our capacity to create our own meaning in our lives.
A terrarium represents this approach to life, cultivating holistic health, meaning and fulfillment; a way of being that allows us not only to survive, but thrive in our own, personally defined way.
