Lex McMillan
Counsellor
Registered with New Zealand Association of Counsellors (NZAC)
I offer counselling and supervision online (Skype, Zoom, etc.) and in person at The Arahura Centre.
I specialise in:
• Relationship counselling
• Stress and anxiety
• Grief and loss
• Identity and life transition
• Burnout and depression
• Faith and identity formation
• Supervision for other helping professionals
• Conflict resolution
Contacting a counsellor for the first time can be scary. But in my experience, it often leads to satisfying change. The changes I would expect to see happening as people work with a counsellor includes growing self-awareness, developing new resources for living, overcoming troubling patterns of behavior, and deepening relationships.
About me, I
• am a registered counsellor with NZAC
• have a PhD, which means I take finding paths to wellbeing seriously
• enjoy facing challenge in my own life, and love talking with people about the reality of their everyday lives and relationships
• Believe that good things happen when we are well resourced in life’s challenges
I grew up on a sheep farm in North Otago. After studying at Lincoln University and marrying Barbara, we partnered in a farming business for ten years. Through these challenging years, I began my counsellor education at Otago University, and enjoyed assisting farming folk in personal and business crisis. I believe counsellors need to be experienced, open to challenge themselves, and well trained. Since leaving farming in my early thirties, I have studied people, counselling, and conflict resolution in New Zealand, England, and Canada, and most recently completed a PhD with Queensland University. I have worked as a practice manager for a child and family support agency, taught in, and led, the counselling programme at Laidlaw College, provided relationship counselling and mediation for the family court, and counselled in private practice now for twenty five years. Barbara and I have four adult children.
Qualifications
Diploma of Agriculture (Lincoln University)
Diploma of Counselling (Waverley Abbey House, England)
Graduate Diploma of Business Studies (Conflict Resolution, Massey University)
Masters of Counselling (Waikato University)
Theology papers (Regent College, Vancouver)
PhD (Queensland University)