Welcome!

I am a Clinical Psychologist working out of Bangalow and online via Telehealth.   I support people with mental health concerns, life transitions, relational challenges and long term change.  

I love the overarching process of engaging with clients to define their key problem areas, setting goals and then jumping in and working on the issues that are driving or maintaining someone’s struggle.  We explore your present concerns and if required undertake assessments which are used as a gauge of current distress and ongoing treatment effectiveness.  We also explore your past and gain an understanding of how your history and the relationships you experienced are having an impact on you in the present day.  My main focus is to help people get to where they want to be, whether that be ‘to feel less flat’ or ‘to be able to walk into a social setting and feel less anxiety’, or ‘to process the loss of a loved one’, or ‘not feel so over run by my mind’.  We all have different concerns and corresponding changes to attain.  

I find the way we attach or relate to others and the impact that has on our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us fascinating.  Much of the work I do with folks is to understand what maladaptive beliefs they hold, which are called schemas.  And I combine this with understanding the attachment style one has, which is how we relate to people, and primarily the insecure styles of avoidant dismissive, anxious preoccupied or fearful disorganised attachment.  The aim is to understand what we have but also to work towards a more secure framework of attachment, in the way we relate to ourselves and the way we relate to others.   We also get to know your beliefs or schemas and how you respond to those on a day to day basis, developing new schemas and new skills to manage the difficult things that come up, allowing you to move through them more effectively.  And for those particularly impacted by the past, we undertake a reprocessing of memories and traumas, to disentangle you from the hold they can have, with the aim of giving you a more balanced view of these experiences and the ability to move forward with a little more ease.    

I have a passion for combining top down processes,  which is the awareness and direction of your conscious and unconscious mind and the behavioural or thinking responses you go into in order to try and manage, with bottom up processes, which involves using grounding, breathing and body connection techniques to help slow the mind down or calm your level of distress and to know where in your body your experience resides.   

For the therapy nerds, this is what I work with:  Schema Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Somatic Experiencing, Mentalization Based Therapy, Sensory Grounding, Distress Tolerance, Exposure Therapy and Motivational Interviewing.

Whilst I aim to be a gentle hand through the difficult process of change, I am direct, which is not everyone’s cup of tea.  The most important thing is that I am a safe person for you to share your vulnerabilities with and for us to work together to help you change.  

I hold a Bachelor of Engineering, Graduate Diploma and Post Graduate Diploma in Psychology and a Masters of Clinical Psychology. I am a member of the Australian Psychological Society and a registered Clinical Psychologist with AHPRA (PSY0002485700).  Please note, psychologists are not allowed to have relationships with clients outside the therapeutic realm.  

I grew up on a cattle farm in Northern NSW and lived abroad for many years, working as a Project and Change Manager in the corporate environment. I have undergone significant change during my adult life and feel privileged to help others navigate what can be a daunting and difficult process.  It feels amazing being on the other side of change.  And that process never really stops, we just get better at navigating it.