Exhale Psychology Centre is founded on five core values. These values are a useful way for you or allied health professionals to know whether we are the right fit.
1. Anti-diet, size-inclusive, and non-weight focused treatment
- We wholeheartedly reject any form of diet (excluding medically necessary dietary restrictions such as with celiac disease)
- We are compassionate towards clients that choose to diet as we understand the extreme societal pressure to look a certain way
- We promote Health At Every Size (HAES) and we do not believe that weight loss is conducive to mental or physical health
- We do not offer weight-focused eating disorder treatments. We believe that eating disorder recovery is best achieved by addressing underlying issues and healing the relationship with food (rather than closely tracking weight). Weight gain is sometimes required, but we believe this can be achieved without weight-focused treatment
2. Trauma-informed care
- We understand that the majority of clients we work with have had traumatic life events that have made it very difficult for them to emotionally regulate, feel ok about themselves, and trust others
- We do not treat our clients as “naughty children” and instead assume that they are battling complex difficulties that are hard for them to both understand and communicate
- We do not offer rigid manualised therapy treatment and instead value being flexible with our primary focused being on the therapeutic relationship (as this is what research indicates best predicts change)
3. Neuroaffirming
- We enjoy working with neurodivergent (ND) individuals and actively hire ND allied health professionals
- We look to the ND community to inform us as to how to be neuroaffirming
- We approach neurodivergence using the social model of disability, understanding that the majority of obstacles come from society and the environment and not from the individual
- We do not offer therapies or assessment tools that have been identified by the ND community as non-neuroaffirming, and we can deliver treatment via Telehealth
- We do not require eye contact, are open to discussing spins (topics of special interest), our rooms have dimming lights, and we encourage the use of sensory tools
4. Rainbow inclusive
- We look to the LGBTQAI+ community to inform us as to how best to be inclusive
- We strive towards not being heteronormative (we work towards not assuming cis or heterosexuality)
- We use clients’ preferred names and pronouns and celebrate gender and sexual diversity
- We enjoy working with the poly/kink community, as well as escorts and sex workers
5. No such thing as “too complex”
We highly value working with clients that are high-risk and have complex comorbidities. This includes but is not limited to:
- Self-harm and suicidal ideation/suicide attempts
- Other high-risk behaviours
- Severe eating disorders
- Complex PTSD
- Personality vulnerabilities
- Difficulty trusting health professionals
- Difficulty engaging with treatment
- We welcome clients that have been rejected from treatment facilities for being “too complex” or “too severe”
- We do not reject clients for being ‘pre-contemplative’ (not quite ready for change)
- We actively avoid referring clients on, and only do so when it is genuinely outside of our scope. When we do refer-on, we do our best to pair the client with a more suitably qualified health professional
