I grew up in a small town in the Mallee and was a high-school drop out. After a series of adventures - making a living as a drummer for two years, entering a monastery for a year - I completed VCE while working in a factory, and found myself at The University of Melbourne, where I studied and eventually taught philosophy.
Philosophy as I practice it, is about trying to live with wisdom and depth, becoming strong and creating a good life. I'm a practical man and a university life was the wrong context for that approach, and so I began studying counselling. I figured I could help men psychologically and philosophically at the same time, and I was right. At 30 I took my first professional role in a suicide prevention service, where I spent years talking guys back from bridges. Or helping them get their life back on track as the bruises healed around their neck. Many of these men had no mental illness, but they suffered because their life had gone wrong in some big way. I learned a lot from them. I learned about how we rise from adversity and rebuild our shattered lives. I repeatedly witnessed in them the phenomenal capacity in us to come back stronger and better than we were before. I developed a passion for this ability in us to rise and build and started to focus my work on that. My burning question became just how good can we make our lives?
Over time I worked for a range of counselling services, including relationship and bereavement work. I began this private practice where I focused explicitly on my passions, and it has become my main work. While I talk a bit like a country boy, I'm one of those people who is obsessive about excellence in my work, both at an intellectual and practical level. I use all my therapeutic, psychological, philosophical, and personal skills, experience, and passion, in the service. However I think one of my best qualities as a counsellor is my ability to
In accordance with what I just said, I have started blending a lot of coaching into my work. Coaching has a reputation for being superficial, but there are many great coaches out there, and in my case it exists alongside the depth of counselling and philosophy. What it means is that I can offer programs where I lead people toward specific outcomes. It also means I can work more intensely with people. Pure counsellors maintain strong boundaries because if a client can make contact anytime they feel distressed then the counsellor burns out. But coaching works with people who can mostly take care of themselves, and who communicate for the sake of personal growth. This means I can work more closely with you across the week, focused on your growth. I become a major context in your life through which you can take greater leaps and sustain them. I love the commitment, energy, excitement, and change that this creates. I get excited about the guys I work with and exert myself to help them.
A counsellor, especially one with a coaching bent, needs to have lived their own version of the story we all face, of failure, mediocrity, and potential for personal greatness. From an abusive step-father in a tiny town, to depression through my 20s, and deep personal suffering which I won't talk about here, I've had plenty of my own struggles. And that applies even in my better aspects. For example throughout my 20s I was friendly, enthusiastic, empathetic...but despite my outward achievements I felt I lacked any power in my life. I was anxious much of the time. I became over-weight. I felt trapped and bullied at work. I was hopeless at dating, assuming that women found me unattractive (I was wrong before the weight piled on, but I suffered deep insecurities). I had to recreate myself on a range of fronts.
Below are two photos of me six months apart, during one phase of growth in my early 30s.
Philosophy as I practice it, is about trying to live with wisdom and depth, becoming strong and creating a good life. I'm a practical man and a university life was the wrong context for that approach, and so I began studying counselling. I figured I could help men psychologically and philosophically at the same time, and I was right. At 30 I took my first professional role in a suicide prevention service, where I spent years talking guys back from bridges. Or helping them get their life back on track as the bruises healed around their neck. Many of these men had no mental illness, but they suffered because their life had gone wrong in some big way. I learned a lot from them. I learned about how we rise from adversity and rebuild our shattered lives. I repeatedly witnessed in them the phenomenal capacity in us to come back stronger and better than we were before. I developed a passion for this ability in us to rise and build and started to focus my work on that. My burning question became just how good can we make our lives?
Over time I worked for a range of counselling services, including relationship and bereavement work. I began this private practice where I focused explicitly on my passions, and it has become my main work. While I talk a bit like a country boy, I'm one of those people who is obsessive about excellence in my work, both at an intellectual and practical level. I use all my therapeutic, psychological, philosophical, and personal skills, experience, and passion, in the service. However I think one of my best qualities as a counsellor is my ability to
- see the possibilities inherent in the person before me
- and how they can get to those
- and falling in love with that - really getting behind their potential and achievement.
In accordance with what I just said, I have started blending a lot of coaching into my work. Coaching has a reputation for being superficial, but there are many great coaches out there, and in my case it exists alongside the depth of counselling and philosophy. What it means is that I can offer programs where I lead people toward specific outcomes. It also means I can work more intensely with people. Pure counsellors maintain strong boundaries because if a client can make contact anytime they feel distressed then the counsellor burns out. But coaching works with people who can mostly take care of themselves, and who communicate for the sake of personal growth. This means I can work more closely with you across the week, focused on your growth. I become a major context in your life through which you can take greater leaps and sustain them. I love the commitment, energy, excitement, and change that this creates. I get excited about the guys I work with and exert myself to help them.
A counsellor, especially one with a coaching bent, needs to have lived their own version of the story we all face, of failure, mediocrity, and potential for personal greatness. From an abusive step-father in a tiny town, to depression through my 20s, and deep personal suffering which I won't talk about here, I've had plenty of my own struggles. And that applies even in my better aspects. For example throughout my 20s I was friendly, enthusiastic, empathetic...but despite my outward achievements I felt I lacked any power in my life. I was anxious much of the time. I became over-weight. I felt trapped and bullied at work. I was hopeless at dating, assuming that women found me unattractive (I was wrong before the weight piled on, but I suffered deep insecurities). I had to recreate myself on a range of fronts.
Below are two photos of me six months apart, during one phase of growth in my early 30s.
That was quite the transformation, but you're only seeing the outward stuff. When I look at the second photo I see a guy who is very intelligent and nice, but far too soft. The bigger transformations have been inward. It coincided with the work I did with suicidal men and the things I learned; the way I felt personally inspired to grow, both in order to be of help to them, but equally to face my own deep challenges and become far better. So I dug down and built emotional strength, courage, greater mastery over my life, and sense of who I am and where I'm going. This means I'm speaking from experience when I say that deep transformation is realistic. I don't get depressed anymore (which is seriously a different life). Nor do I get anxious. I get hit on by attractive women and have no fear approaching them, and relate confidently with other men. I now run a successful business doing what I love. With real effort and wisdom, anybody can turn their life around. I'm still on this road as I will be for the rest of my life - we, like life, are always far from perfect - but when you do it right, this path is a joyful way of living, of finding your strength and laughter and always becoming more.
I now counsel and coach other men to do the same, in their own way, in their own lives. Whoever you are now, whatever you look like, however you feel, this is your potential. I know because I've taken the same journey. And I've helped many others do it.
These days I live in central Victoria, in a 19th century cottage by the forest where I work from home by Skype and sometimes run intensive weekends. I also see face-to-face clients in Carlton, Melbourne.
– Matthew Bishop (MAppSocSci(Couns); BA (Hon); Dip. Prof. Couns.).
I now counsel and coach other men to do the same, in their own way, in their own lives. Whoever you are now, whatever you look like, however you feel, this is your potential. I know because I've taken the same journey. And I've helped many others do it.
These days I live in central Victoria, in a 19th century cottage by the forest where I work from home by Skype and sometimes run intensive weekends. I also see face-to-face clients in Carlton, Melbourne.
– Matthew Bishop (MAppSocSci(Couns); BA (Hon); Dip. Prof. Couns.).
