Gambling and other problematic behaviours are a coping strategy for grief, particularly for people with limited other coping strategies/high levels of stress and responsibility/low levels of social support. These behaviours fill a ‘need’ for people – it gives something as well as ‘taking away’ – and the need will be different for different people, even if the behaviour is the same. For instance, one gambler may enjoy the sensory immersion/escape provided by playing pokies in the club, meeting their need for respite from an overwhelming situation. Another gambler may come to the club and play the pokies for the informal social interactions that occur around gaming, meeting their need for company.
Description:
OPD Points: 5
Key Learning Objectives / Outcomes:
Presenter / Provider:
Dr Elizabeth (Ellie) Kirk
Presenter Qualifications:
Dr. Elizabeth Kirk
MCouns, PhD, BA(Hons), Registered Counsellor, ACA Member, PACFA Provisional Member
Dr Kirk, is a counsellor who works online from a small town in rural NSW, where she and her young family live on a farm. She is a member of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA), Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA), and Grief Australia (GA), formerly Australian Centre for Grief and Bereavement (ACGB).
Dr Elizabeth Kirk has always been interested in people, their lives and their stories. This curiosity led her to a Doctorate in sociology at the Australian National University in Canberra. Her PhD explored gambling and its social contexts. After completing her PhD, she worked in government, traveled around Spain hiking the Camino de Santiago, and returned to Australia more connected to what she enjoyed most in life: people and their stories. Elizabeth started volunteering with Lifeline and enrolled in a Masters of Counselling at Monash University, and moved to Melbourne to work in some health promotion organisations while completing her studies.
During her Masters, Elizabeth I learned that there were many different types of counselling and was fortunate to gain a placement, and later work, in schools and crisis counselling. School work and crisis work exposed her to the full spectrum of counselling issues where no two days were the same. After her placement, she returned to Canberra and worked in the grief, loss and trauma space, as well as in gambling counselling. As her family relocated to rural NSW, and the world changed with Covid, Elizabeth decided that the next direction she wanted to grow in was to start an online/phone counselling service. She has been in private practice since September 2021 and enjoys working with a diverse range of clients, many of whom are living with grief and loss.
