I am not sure if enjoy or love is the right word, but I am glad I do the work that I do and I look forward to going to work each morning. Life is not easy. It presents us with so many obstacles and challenges, but to bare witness to people overcoming these difficulties is a privilege.
Born and raised in country WA, My name is Darren West and I am a registered psychologist at Prosper Health Collective.
If I had to use a metaphor to try to best describe counselling, I would say that it is like a car trip, one in which I am a passenger and you are the driver. As a passenger, I am there to accompany you on the journey while holding the road map, but as the driver, you determine how fast we go and the location of the final destination. Counselling can seem like a daunting prospect, so given this, I like to try to re-assure clients that they are in control and we never go where they don’t want to.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve been using my psychological background in various roles. Much of my early career was focused on helping families and young people, working with families ‘at risk’, young people experiencing difficulties transitioning from primary to high school and supporting prisoners and their families during their incarceration. From there, I worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor for 4 years and for the past 7 years, I have been a torture and trauma specialist counsellor and Coordinator at ASeTTS, working exclusively with refugees, asylum seekers and newly arrived entrants who have experienced torture and trauma. These experiences have allowed me to work with people on a number of different issues.
