About Me

I became a therapist in mid-life. I had already been working as a call taker on a crisis phone line for a number of years, learning the art of sitting with people in their pain. It is deeply humbling to be with someone in a moment of crisis. I became increasingly curious about what led up to these moments and the broader landscape of people’s lives. Always, the quality of relationships was part of the story - the extent to which a person felt heard, understood, valued, taken seriously; as though they, and their concerns, mattered. I wanted more ways to help; a broader view of the nature of human struggle and human strengths; to understand what makes a difference in how we can live with these. I decided to undertake a Master of Counselling & Psychotherapy. It felt extremely daunting to study again in my 40s, but as Carl Jung proposed, midlife can call us to step into new challenges for the second half of the journey.

I had spent my early adulthood exploring the world of art and design, including a brief stint in the sculpture department of the Victorian College of the Arts and a period of time running a business reworking vintage men's suiting into unique women’s clothing. I learned some lessons about the nature of personal creativity and the freedom and responsibility inherent in small-business ownership.

My transition to a career in teaching led to an intense apprenticeship in the art of keeping calm amid the chaos of twenty-six 8-year-olds! I worked as a primary school teacher for 13 years (in schools ranging from a large, urban campus to a tiny, two-room rural school of 18 students) prior to completing my Masters. In these many classrooms, I spent my days guiding and witnessing the curiosity, creativity, enthusiasm, resilience, and courage of kids. Together we learned about making mistakes, making friends and making apologies. There were also experiences of burnout, as my desire to do my best for kids bumped up against ever-expanding workload pressures and chronic under-resourcing.

The classroom has been swapped for the therapy space, and I work with adults now; many of whom come to therapy feeling out of touch with the strengths and passions once alive in their 8-year-old selves. The counselling space can be a place of reflection and reconnection; a place to step out of the routine and the automatic, to take stock of life, ask questions of ourselves, to gather the courage to do things differently and to develop sensitivity to what brings a sense of personal meaning to our lives.

 I invite you to join me here.