A Journey to Freedom: Jane’s Story of Transformation
When Jane Phipps first reached out to Anne Ligthart at 2nd Opinion Psychotherapy, she was carrying the weight of decades of unresolved trauma. At 50 years old, Jane had spent most of her adult life feeling overwhelmed, unsupported, and trapped in a cycle of fear and anxiety.
“I sought help from a psychologist for the first time when I was in my mid-20s. I was a single mum doing a PhD in maths, and life was overwhelming. I felt alone and unsupported. This became the theme for my adult life, a roller coaster ride of psychologists and feelings of being overwhelmed and unsafe. A life of fear.”
Despite her academic achievements, including pursuing a PhD in mathematics as a single mother, Jane struggled with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and shame. It wasn’t until she began working with Anne in August 2023 that she finally heard the words “trauma” and “abuse” when talking about her upbringing.
“I thought for all these years that I had been peeling back the layers of the onion and would eventually get to the source of my anxiety,” Jane explains. “When I started with Anne, I realised I hadn’t actually got very far.”
The turning point came when Anne suggested an intensive session consisting of three 90-minute Brainspotting sessions on a Saturday. During this powerful experience, Jane was able to confront and process years of feeling ashamed about her appearance, family dynamics, and feelings of being different and misunderstood.
“It was hard work. We spotted on the way my family and extended family treated me from childhood into adulthood, how I had been fat-shamed despite (looking back) it was unfounded, how I was treated as different because I was a studious child, and my family didn’t understand this. How I felt that I had a disability and I wasn’t like normal people and had been carrying this mindset for 50 years.”
The results were transformative. “At the end of the intensive, I was able to say to Anne, ‘THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ME’ and ‘THIS WAS DONE TO ME.’ The new mindset was instant. I feel like I am wearing a different skin; I feel free from limiting beliefs; I feel like I have such an amazing future ahead of me.”
“I fundamentally believe that the intensive session not only got to the centre of that onion; we examined that centre and threw the whole onion in the garbage,” Jane says.
Now, Jane is embracing a new chapter in her life, free from the constraints of her past. “I am having so much fun learning who I am and testing my boundaries. I am so looking forward to my next chapter,” she says enthusiastically.
Jane’s story is one of many people that are ready for the changes that occur with Good Therapy.
Today, Jane has resigned from an unfulfilling job, negotiated an excellent payout, is enjoying a road trip across Australia with a friend, and giving thanks for the new page she has turned in her career and her life. She continues therapy fortnightly for now, and is in the third phase of her therapeutic growth.
(See the blog on The Process of Good Therapy.
