Welcome

I am a psychotherapist, researcher, and specialist in psychodynamic therapy. For the past two decades, I have studied how to ease human suffering and empower people towards reclaiming the parts of themselves that have been buried or silenced – and break free from cycles of pain so they can become the true authors of their own stories.

WHY I PRACTISE PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOTHERAPY

When I began my clinical work, I was trained in evidence-based modalities like CBT, DBT, and ACT. These therapies are structured, symptom-focused, and manualised to suit research protocols—and often, the objectives of insurance providers, where success is defined by short-term symptom reduction rather than meaningful psychological change. They have their place—particularly when clear, targeted interventions are needed to manage crisis, build coping skills to survive day-to-day responsibilities, or reduce immediate distress.
But over time, I noticed something. Most of the people who walked into my office didn’t present with isolated symptoms. They brought dense histories, internal contradictions, longings they couldn’t name, and a deeply felt wish to be understood—not categorised.
While skills-based therapies helped many clients feel more stable, they often returned saying they still felt emotionally stuck. They had learned how to cope—but not how to shift the deeper patterns that kept them repeating painful relational cycles, struggling with harsh self-judgement, or feeling inexplicably angry, numb, or disconnected.
Despite doing “the work,” something essential remained untouched.
That’s what led me to psychodynamic therapy. I began to understand that many of the difficulties people brought into the room weren’t just cognitive or behavioural—they were emotional patterns shaped by early relationships, unmet needs, and protective strategies that once made sense but now held them back. These weren’t just habits. They were survival strategies. But eventually, they stopped working.
Psychodynamic and relational psychoanalytic therapy helps make sense of those patterns. It works with the unconscious—the emotional undercurrents we live out but rarely articulate. It explores how past relationships shape current ones, how defences become internal prisons, and how early losses or ruptures continue to echo in the present.
This approach isn’t about applying a technique or fixing symptoms in a vacuum. It’s about understanding the person—their inner world, their longings, their attachment patterns, and the meanings they’ve made from experience. It sees symptoms not just as problems to eliminate, but as expressions of something deeper trying to be heard.
Psychodynamic therapy allows us to make space for that complexity. It doesn’t rush to reduce pain before understanding what the pain is trying to say. It asks: What kinds of experiences led this person to feel unsafe in the world? How did their early environments shape their sense of self, their capacity for connection, for play, for love? What have they come to believe—often unconsciously—about what they’re allowed to feel, to need, to want?
For people coming to therapy seeking a quick fix—sometimes, brief models can help. But even in short-term work, I find it essential to understand the personality of the person in front of me. Two people may both struggle with perfectionism, for example—but for entirely different reasons. One might be trying to avoid shame, another seeking approval, another trying to impose control over a world that once felt chaotic. If we don’t understand what a symptom means to someone, we risk misdiagnosis and attempting to treat something entirely irrelevant.
Ultimately, I believe therapy should serve the unique person—not an idealised method, not a funding model, not a diagnostic checklist. Psychodynamic therapy, at its best, honours that individuality. In psychodynamic work, we don’t just treat “disorders.” We help people grieve, integrate, develop self-respect, and feel more emotionally free.
I practise psychodynamic therapy because I find it to be the most humanising and clinically honest way of approaching psychological suffering. I’m drawn to the richness of psychoanalytic thinking—not out of loyalty to a tradition, but because it continues to offer the most nuanced, enduring, and deeply human change in the people I work with.

Experience

In addition to my private practise, I have worked extensively in inpatient mental health clinics, supporting individuals with a range of interpersonal issues such as personality disorders, depression and anxiety, addiction, complex trauma and grief and loss. I’ve also delivered psychoeducational seminars for consumers and carers, and published writing on topics such as borderline personality disorder, complex PTSD, dissociative identity disorder, and early attachment trauma.

Qualifications & Training

  • Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Counselling
  • Master’s in Counselling and Psychotherapy (Current)

MEMBERSHIPS

  • Registered Member – Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA)
  • Member – Australian Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists (ARCAP)
If something resonates, I'd be glad to explore what’s brought you to this point. Contact me to start the conversation.