This video is designed to help young people recognise how problems can grow when we avoid things we find difficult. It also shows that it is possible to face difficulty, even when we don’t like it, and how worthwhile that can be.
Therapist note: This video uses the concepts of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy including experiential avoidance, creative hopelessness and incidental mindfulness to assist young people to recognise the circular nature of avoidance and the benefits of moving towards valued living, despite the difficulty it necessarily entails.
Spanish subtitles by Vicenç Rul·lan.
About Jodie Wassner
Jodie Wassner is an Educational and Developmental Psychologist with over 25 years experience counselling young people and their families in Melbourne and Sydney. She divides her professional time equally between clinic work with young people and educational training for psychologists and other health professionals, via local and international workshops, as well as supervision for psychologists and provisional psychologists worldwide.
Jodie completed her Masters of Psychology (Educational and Developmental) degree at Monash University. She went on to spend the next fifteen years working as a school psychologist in Primary and Secondary schools, followed by 10 years in private practice focusing on young people and their families. She is especially familiar with the issues that are likely to emerge across the developmental period and has extensive experience working with anxiety, depression, autism spectrum conditions, attention deficits, learning difficulties, grief, anger, family conflict, bullying, sleep disturbance, stress management, social skills, school refusal, eating disturbance and OCD.
Her two professional passions are neurodiversity (particularly autism and attention deficits) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
Clinic Work
Jodie runs a busy private practice in Sydney and will be relocating to Melbourne late 2021. She works predominantly with autism, anxiety, OCD and ADHD. Jodie has always had a knack for connecting with young people. She harbours a genuine love for kids and teens and treats them with compassion and understanding from the outset. Young people and their families often comment that they feel safe and understood in Jodie's care. She has a particular reputation for helping dozens of families in her clinic to navigate the challenges of autism as well as embrace the strengths and passions that accompany neurodiversity.
Workshops
Jodie is a seasoned presenter and has delivered countless workshops to health professionals, schools and the community. She is a workshop facilitator for several highly respected organisations including the Black Dog Institute and Learning Links. She has also presented her own work at several conferences including The Australian Psychological Society, Body Image and Better Health Inc. in conjunction with VicHealth, Association for Contextual Behavioural Sciences and Shire Australia Clinical Insights: Modern Management of ADHD- Building the Therapeutic Alliance.
Jodie has co-written a ten-session manual for psychologists working with anxious children using the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Jodie is President of the International Autism and ACT ACBS group and is a Fellow of the APS College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists.
