Irina Moroshko Psychologist

Irina is a clinical psychologist and supervisor with experience supporting children, adolescents, and adults with a diverse range of mood and mental health conditions since 2011. Irina’s approach is holistic, evidence-based, and client-centered. She works collaboratively with her clients to decide on the best ways to improve their mental health and wellbeing. Irina brings warmth, empathy, common sense, practical approach, simplicity, and humor to therapy. Irina encourages her clients to imagine their ideal self and how different their day to day would be if they were able to act consistently with this image. Irina’s clients say that they understand how every discussion and task brings them closer to their goals and that they always know what new ways of being they will be practising outside their sessions. Irina enjoys presenting her clients with very simple and visual ways to frame their challenges and help them see where they are heading. Clients often comment on using these visuals to guide them when faced with everyday difficulties. Irina feels accomplished when clients report that they feel more confident and efficient when dealing with difficulties. When working with adults experiencing adjustment issues, mental health problems, and other emotional difficulties, Irina helps clients to understand their thoughts and feelings as well as the impact of previous experiences and learnings, and how these affect the body, behaviour, relationships, and decisions. Irina provides an opportunity to learn productive ways to reduce symptoms, clarify what is truly important and meaningful, and commit to taking action that improves and enriches life. While Anxiety (General Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, OCD, Social Anxiety, Phobias, Tics), Depression including Post Natal Depression, and Trauma (including complex trauma and PTSD) are the most common concerns Irina works with, she also enjoys working with people presenting with difficulties around intimate and work relationships, anger management and violence, stress management, and grief and loss. Irina is passionate about supporting women and men through the planning journey of starting a family, the pregnancy, the postpartum period, and parenting Irina has a special interest in working with clients on the autism spectrum to address mental health issues they may be experiencing, help embrace a positive self-identity, and adopt self-advocacy skills. Irina embraces neurodiversity, which refers to the natural variation in the human brain regarding various mental functions. Thus, she regards Autism as a difference rather than a disability. Irina’s vision is to see autistic people empowered by their gifts and passions; for them to learn self-acceptance, and see the uniqueness, contribution, and benefits in being and doing things differently rather than following the already established ways. Irina empowers her clients to advocate for accommodations, inclusion, and academic and vocational integration. Irina is confident that when the autistic individual’s needs are met, they will be able to demonstrate their best abilities when learning, working, and communicating. Irina’s philosophy is simple - “know who you are, and ask for what you need (assertively; rather than aggressively, or not at all)”. Irina believes that it is not the sole responsibility of a neurodiverse individual to learn to adjust and accommodate. It is their responsibility, however, to acknowledge and learn about their gifts, unique needs, and challenges - and then to communicate these to others. As in any relationship and two-way communication, the world and the autistic individual can “meet halfway”. Irina is confident that the world can benefit from embracing autism by tapping into the special gifts and strengths of the individual, by becoming more flexible, creative, accommodating, accepting and inclusive of all types of brains. Irina knows that accommodating autism is not as hard as non-autistic individuals and organisations often perceive it to be, and is honoured to share her knowledge. When working with children and adolescents with social, behavioural, cognitive, learning, and psychological challenges, Irina invites parents who wish to act as “co-therapists” to actively participate in the sessions. Irina also understands, however, that some parents would like to “take a break” from working out solutions and would prefer that their psychologist offers ways to facilitate change. Other parents may prefer their children to have their own space to explore concerns and learn new skills; yet others prefer to be trained so that they can help their child themselves. Irina also works directly with parents to work through any matters that may “dominate” parenting, such as a parent’s own childhood experiences, mental health and wellbeing, grief and loss, values and meaning-making, and co-parenting. Such work, where relevant, allows the parent to be fully present and responsive to their child. Parents often seek the psychologist’s input to help with advocating for accommodations at their child’s educational setting and for obtaining supporting evidence and documentation for funding purposes, social inclusion, individualized support, and academic integration for their child. Irina’s work is trauma and attachment-informed and incorporates creative techniques such as art, play, narrative (story-telling), and drama therapy. Irina draws on a range of evidence-based therapies including: Motivational Interviewing (MI) Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) Dialectical-Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) Schema Therapy Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) Grief and loss counselling Narrative therapy Pregnancy Support (Non-Directive) Counselling To give back to the psychology profession Irina is serving as a member in a number of special-interest groups in line with her professional interests (including attachment, neurodiversity, trauma) and routinely supervises psychology registrars and fully registered psychologists. Irina received research awards and published research findings in a number of international journals. Irina’s therapeutic work was presented in the Department of Human and Health Services (DHHS) annual “Best Practice” publication in both 2014 and 2016. Irina’s vision is to establish a clinic where clients find their place (“My Place”) for meaningful work and connections through both one-on-one and group work, and dreams of training a puppy to be her therapy companion. Irina speaks conversational Russian and is fluent in Hebrew. Approved Medicare provider Registered with AHPRA and holds a Clinical Psychology Endorsement Psychology Board of Australia approved Clinical Supervisor (principal) Member of the APS