Dr Kath Boekamp

Kath has experience working in a variety of clinical settings within the public and private sector. Kath has worked with a number of Youth Mental Health Services over many years, including YouthFocus, headspace, YouthLink, & Youth Reach South as well as Child & Adolescent MH services (CAMHS). She previously maintained a position at the Fiona Stanley Hospital-Youth Mental Health Unit (inpatient) as well as various Government Mental Health services.

Kath likes to work with young people (adolescents aged 12+ and young adults) who have anxiety type disorders; are perhaps struggling with some of the “normal” changes in their lives; are struggling with things needing to always be “Perfect or Right”; or those who may have experienced trauma, whether complex or single events.

She finds it particularly rewarding to work with young people, to help them recognise that they too can learn to have “power” in their lives, to deal with the challenges of adolescence, family, school, future and beyond. Kath at times also works with parents directly to support them in understanding and relating to their young people.

You may feel overwhelmed, experience feelings of dread, nervousness, anxiety, guilt and/or shame. Physically, you may notice your heart racing, sweaty hands/body, racing thoughts or perhaps simply can’t think at all, or you may have trouble switching off and relaxing. When things don’t go the way you think they “should” go you might notice yourself becoming easily irritated, angry, frustrated or annoyed or sometimes anxious, or sometimes shut-down completely.

Perhaps you might be noticing some difficult and repetitive patterns in some of your relationships, whether with your partner, friends or family members, i.e. parents. You may also notice that you keep repeating some habits (self-defeating/self-sabotaging) that you just can’t seem to change; such as self-harm, picking fights or creating difficulties for yourself by putting things off to the last minute (procrastination) or avoiding situations entirely…

You might relate to some of the following issues; Anxiety, Perfectionism, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or Phobias, Adjustment Disorder, Social Anxiety, PTSD (complex or single), Attachment issues, Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD/EUPD), or Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD).

You might also wonder if you might be Autistic and/or ADHD or be neurodivergent. Kath has spent the last few years  working to upskill her neuroaffriming assessment and therapeutic skills in these areas.

Kath at heart considers herself to be a CBT therapist, however is trained in and draws from a number of Integrative treatment systems, depending on the needs of the client;  Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) including Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), Metacognitive Therapy (MCT), Schema Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy techniques (DBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), and other trauma-informed approaches.

Her therapeutic style is active, engaged, collaborative, and person-centred. For this reason the type of clients she prefers to work with are those that are not just interested in symptom-reduction, but for those that are also looking to understand not just the “what” they do… but also the “why” they do, and “how” they got there in the first place. For the most part this means that this type of work is not really suited to clients who just want to vent. Although this is an important part of the work, Kath’s goal is to always dig deeper to allow you to more fully understand yourself.

Good therapeutic work is really about the relationship you have with your therapist and not necessarily the treatment approach they may use; therefore Kath’s aim is to help create connection, stability, consistency, awareness and trust to allow you the space to grow, unpack and develop the skills you need, as well as to provide opportunities for repair.

SUPERVISION: Dr Kath Boekamp is registered with AHPRA to provide clinical supervision to Registrars in the Clinical Endorsement Pathway and Provisional Psychologists who are in the 5:1 pathway.

She is also available to provide supervision to Psychologists, Counsellors and Youth Workers.

Kath sees clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays.