Welcome.

Trauma occurs when your ability to cope in circumstances where you feel threatened, is overwhelmed. When this occurs, the bonds of attachment and security that are the bedrock of a stable and coherent sense of self are broken.

The experience of trauma can lead to disconnection from yourself, your body, your loved ones and the world around you. People experiencing trauma often feel that they have a lack of choice and autonomy in their lives.

However, being impacted by trauma is not a sign of weakness. Your nervous system is reacting simply as it should in overwhelming or life-threatening circumstances. With the right support, you can metabolise trauma and live a life of autonomy, safety and dignity. Research has proven psychotherapy to be the most effective form of trauma treatment.

Manav utilises a neuroscience-informed, safe and relational approach to supporting clients to metabolise and heal from trauma.

Individual therapy is a personalised approach to therapy that can help you improve your emotional well-being, manage mental health conditions, and develop coping strategies for life’s challenges.

Working with Manav can help you manage anxiety and/or depression, express emotions in a safe and healthy way, develop healthy boundaries, and address attachment styles and developmental issues.

Manav utilises a relational Gestalt approach to individual therapy. Gestalt therapy encourages curious self-exploration, embodiment, personal responsibility, and creative experimentation to raise self-awareness about your current situation while developing your capacity to navigate the uncertainty of life.

The ultimate goal of this type of therapy is to support you to live a creative, connected and fulfilled life.

Grief and loss touch us all. There are times when the presence of sorrow is acute: a loved one dies, a marriage dissolves, or a community is shattered by natural disasters. There are other times when the loss may be more subtle (but not necessarily less impactful). To be human is to know loss in its many forms.

We live, however, in a grief-phobic and death-denying culture. In our culture, we are forced to grieve in isolation and pressured to “get on with it” and “get over it” with the minimum amount of fuss. When we are unsupported in our grief, we can feel deeply alone, and the pain of loss can seem overwhelming and all-consuming.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

With Manav’s therapeutic support, you will be empowered to navigate the intense emotion of grief in ways that will deepen your emotional intimacy with life and in your relationships.

Life transitions are periods of transformation in our lives that mark the beginning of something new. They are essentially major episodes of change in our life. They can be anticipated rites of passage such as completing high school, starting your first full-time job, getting married, having children, becoming an empty-nester or retiring.

All of these ‘passages’ provide a transition from something that has played out, died, or ceased to be productive. Even when anticipated, these transitions can create significant stress and loss of identity. You may also experience anxiety and depression if such life transitions do not occur as expected.

Traditional societies recognised the need to support individuals through significant transitions and developed rites of passage to ensure that members of their community could navigate these transitions safely. In contemporary societies, we have unfortunately lost our understanding of the importance of these transitions and therefore people generally have fewer tools for supporting personal strength, agility and survival.

Manav provides therapeutic support to clients navigating the uncertain terrain of life transitions. His approach centres on developing resilience, perspective, emotional intelligence and developing internal resources.

Interpersonal conflicts can feel awkward, uncomfortable, or even dangerous. This can lead to us being avoidant or lacking confidence when faced with interpersonal conflict. We are also wired in ways that lead us to become automated, nearsighted and uncreative when dealing with conflicts. Why?

At one level, our choices and actions in life are guided by assumptions, values and expectations that become challenged in conflict situations. This leads to the destabilisation of our constructed sense of certainty.

At a physiological level, when your brain registers a threat (which is how your brain interprets a conflict), it starts a process to activate a stress response throughout your sympathetic nervous system. If the perception of threat is sustained, cortisol is released to help keep your body on high alert. When in a state of high alert, you lose your capacity for critical thinking and rational problem-solving and instead become defensive.

As a conflict specialist, Manav can help you address interpersonal conflict with more confidence, self-awareness and impact. This will lead you to greater personal growth and more harmony in your relationships.

Men who struggle with mental health issues including depression, suicidal thinking, and addictions, are traditionally far less likely to seek help than people of other genders. One reason for this is that the dominant cultural stereotype of the “strong man” perpetuates a form of masculinity that treats vulnerability as a weakness. The result is that many men repress their emotions until they are ultimately consumed by them.

Current statistics reveal that Australian men are facing a well-being crisis. On average, one in eight men will experience depression and one in five men will experience anxiety at some stage of their lives. Men make up an average of seven out of every nine suicides every single day in Australia. The number of men who die by suicide in Australia every year is nearly double the national road toll.

When men are left unsupported, the impacts also ripple out across our community. Living in a vacuum, where they feel disconnected from a sense of purpose, identity, and vulnerability, men can embody an unsafe or even violent form of toxic masculinity.

Manav has been closely involved in facilitating group work and rites of passage for men across Australia over the past decade. Working with Manav can help you to powerfully embody a form of masculinity that is safe, purpose-driven, nurturing and aligned with your vision and personal values.