About Dr Barbara Sorensen

Barbara is a registered psychologist who works in private practice in Manly on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. She holds general registration as psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia.

Barbara is a registered provider with Medicare.

Barbara completed her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Aalborg University in Denmark followed by a Master of Science in Psychology from Copenhagen University. She has also completed a Master of Research and a Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology from Macquarie University in Sydney. Furthermore, Barbara has completed a three-year core training program and a two-year advanced training program in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) with Dr Stephen Arthey.

Working as a Psychologist in various public and private health services and has given Barbara experience in helping adolescents and adults with a range of difficulties such as:

• Anxiety and stress
• Depression
• Chronic pain
• Low self-esteem and self-worth
• Family and relationship problems
• Difficulty with emotion regulation

Furthermore, she has clinical training and experience in providing psychotherapy to people who present with:

• Anxiety disturbances such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, generalised anxiety disorder, social phobia, and panic attacks
• Mood disorders including depression and bipolar disorders
• Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders
• Personality disturbances and personality disorders such as borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid

Clinical Training and Professional Experience

Based on her clinical training and professional experience, Barbara works within various therapeutic modalities including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), and Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP).

Barbara has completed her PhD in Psychology from Macquarie University by investigating how to improve the understanding of psychosis. By integrating theoretical ideas in a novel manner, she has delineated a psychodynamic theory that is capable of explaining psychosis. Her dissertation proposes that the most coherent theoretical formulation of the causation of psychosis postulates an unconscious fantasy of a private world, which is an expression of the dominance of the aggressive, antiaffiliative motivational structure in relation to the construction and validation of one’s subjective reality. The psychotic person thereby understands and explains their internal experiences through the delusions they have created within the unconscious fantasy of a private world. Through her theory, Barbara demonstrates that an unconscious fantasy of a private world is a distinctive feature of psychosis, which makes it possible to construct and make sense of reality without needing validation from the outside world.

Barbara has also completed a master research thesis investigating how Habib Davanloo’s metapsychology of the unconscious with its extension to psychosis can contribute to the current psychodynamic understanding of psychosis. It was found that Davanloo’s metapsychology of the unconscious offers an important contribution to the understanding of psychosis by considering the role attachment and emotions without neglecting the impact of unconscious conflict and fantasy.

Thesis: ISTDP and Psychosis: An Investigation into the Role of Unconscious Conflict and Emotions

Published Article: https://doi.org/10.1521/pdps.2019.47.3.291

Additionally, Barbara has completed a master research thesis investigating the meaning of co-existing fears of closeness and separation in the obsessive-compulsive character of morbid jealousy. Morbid jealousy was found to be an obsessive compulsive defensive mechanism against experiencing painful emotions and the experience of emptiness.

Based on her research on borderline disturbances, Barbara has received further training in the treatment and understanding of borderline level pathology where anxiety from emotions triggered by both closeness and rejection is often the dominating conflict. This manifests itself in these individuals’ intimate relationships where the borderline individual tend to “desire what they are scared of loosing and to reject what is already in their possession but whose invasion they fear.” (André Green, 1979, p. 27). As D.W. Winnicott (1963, p. 186) writes: “It is a sophisticated game of hide-and-seek in which it is joy to be hidden but a disaster not to be found.”

Barbara furthermore has an interest in treating problems arising from somatisation and has participated in a panel discussion following the screening of the documentary All the Rage, which explores the connections between emotions and health through the work of renowned physician Dr John Sarno.