What it
might be like
Everyone’s experience is very different.
You might find therapy easier than you thought, harder than you thought, hard to start with but got easier, easy to start with but got harder, frustrating, interesting, inspiring, annoying, embarrassing, confusing, painful, funny, surprising, eye-opening, shocking, boring, heart-rate-elevating, infuriating, consciousness-raising, calming, crushing, hilarious, validating, irritating, momentum-building.
Maybe you’ll feel all of the above or other things entirely, and it will change over time, too.
What I will always strive to create is a sense of safety and support. Critically, I will regularly check if you’re not finding it helpful.
Safety,
honesty
and
genuine
partnership
I practice something called feedback-informed treatment.
At the start and end of most sessions I’ll ask a small number of brief, research-backed questions about how you’re tracking and how the session went.
The tools themselves, the ORS and SRS, are open source, and were developed by Scott Miller, Barry Duncan and Jacqueline Sparks, and the research behind them is solid. They are heavily researched ‘tools’ — each one of them is four simple questions using a scale from 1 to 10; low to high.
The research shows that incorporating these tools reduces how often people drop out of therapy, strengthens the relationship between client and psychologist, and tends to lead to better outcomes.
It gives us an honest, ongoing feedback loop so we can adjust our approach as we go.
If I’m not the right fit for you, this is often how we’d acknowledge that early and I can help you find someone who might be better placed to help.
most sessions
most sessions
surfaces something
On diagnosis & categories
I think it’s helpful to know this from the outset, because my approach may not be what you want.
I’m trained in the DSM-5, the diagnostic and statistical manual produced by the American Psychological Association (the comprehensive tome of conditions), and I think it has an important place. A diagnosis can bring enormous relief, make sense of years of confusion, open the door to evidence-based treatments and supports, and help guide what is (and isn’t) likely to be effective. It also helps ensure professionals work within their scope of practice and refer someone on if their needs sit outside the clinician’s expertise.
I don’t think diagnostic labels are wrong, and I’ll always think about what’s going on for you with the DSM-5 in mind. But I don’t usually start there, even though we may absolutely go there. That’s because a diagnosis only tells you so much. Two people with the same diagnosis can be struggling with very different underlying processes, while two people with different diagnoses, or none at all, may be experiencing the same patterns.
Instead, I tend to start with what’s happening for you.
Many diagnoses share common underlying processes: like difficulty tolerating uncertainty, emotional avoidance, harsh self-criticism, or a nervous system that persistently detects threats. These patterns can show up as anxiety, depression, insomnia, perfectionism, anger, relationship difficulties, disordered eating, and much more. They don’t neatly stay within diagnostic categories.
This is what psychologists mean by transdiagnostic: processes that cut across multiple diagnoses.
Rather than treating each diagnosis as a separate problem, I prefer to understand what’s driving your difficulties first. When those underlying processes change, improvements often occur across many areas of life, not just the symptoms that happen to meet the criteria for a particular diagnosis.
We may still decide that a diagnosis is useful, and sometimes it absolutely is. I just don’t tend to make it the starting point.
If you’re exploring neurodiversity in adulthood, and potentially a diagnosis, drop me a line and we can talk about your options.
Telehealth, with a
format that works for you
You can work with me privately, or via a Mental Health Treatment Plan through your GP for up to 10 rebated sessions per calendar year.
If you have a Plan, the rebate will be $101.55 per session (as at July 2026).
