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Counselling for adults and teenagers in Newstead
Most people who sit down with me are somewhere in the middle of a change. Something ended, or someone died, or life quietly stopped fitting. Here is what we might work on, and what the sessions are actually like.
One to one
For adults
Sessions are sixty minutes, in Newstead or online, in English, Spanish or French. You don't need to know which of these you are. Most people turn out to be two or three at once.
Change and identity
A move, a job that stopped fitting, children grown and gone, a body that has started behaving differently. Nothing has gone wrong, exactly, and that is often what makes it so hard to explain to anyone.
"I got everything I said I wanted and I don't recognise the person who wanted it."
Grief and loss
A death, or a loss that nobody quite counts as one. There is no schedule here and I will not be moving you along. Often the heaviest part is the belief that you should be further through it by now.
"Everyone has gone back to normal and I am still standing in it."
When a relationship ends
The practical unpicking is one thing. Underneath it sits a quieter question about who you are now, if you are not that. Both get taken seriously, and the second one does not get rushed.
"I am fine about it, and then I am not fine about it, sometimes in the same hour."
The same argument, over and over
When a conversation keeps going wrong it is rarely because nobody cares. Usually everyone has learned where the landmines are and is stepping around them, which leaves very little room to say anything at all.
"We are perfectly polite now and I hate it."
Belonging, culture and home
Living between two places, translating yourself all day, holding a family's expectations from another country. This is the work I am most often sought out for, and the one I know from the inside.
"I have built a whole life here and I still feel like a visitor."
Carrying it all quietly
You are the one everybody leans on. Nothing has broken, you are functioning, and you are also very tired. That counts, and you do not need a bigger reason than that to come.
"Is this even a big enough thing to book an appointment about?"
One to one, and together
For teenagers and families
Young people usually do better with a space that belongs to them. Families usually do better when someone slows the conversation down enough for people to hear what is underneath it.
Sessions with your teenager
Their hour, steered by them. We agree at the start, with everyone in the room, what I will and will not pass on, so nobody spends the next six weeks guessing.
"They used to tell me everything and now I get one word answers."
Caught between two cultures
Being one person at home and another at school is exhausting, and it is rarely the thing a young person names first. It is often what is sitting underneath the mood.
"They are embarrassed by where we come from and it breaks my heart."
Family sessions
Two or more of you in the room. No taking sides and no single person cast as the problem. Uncomfortable for about twenty minutes and then usually a relief.
"We are all still adjusting and we are doing it badly."
What to expect
This is not fifty minutes of talking at a stranger
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1
You arrive with nothing prepared
No form to fill in beforehand, no story to have organised. Most people start mid-sentence and we work backwards from there.
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2
We work in whichever language it lives in
English, Spanish or French, and you can move between them in the same hour. You will not have to translate your own grief while you are having it.
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3
Your body is part of the conversation
Change tends to show up in the shoulders and the sleep before it reaches words. We pay attention to that rather than treating it as a side effect.
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4
Culture stays in the room
Your family's expectations, your faith, your migration, what belonging has cost you. Not background to get past before the real work. Often it is the work.
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5
No programme and no homework
Unless you want some, in which case we will find something that suits you. We go at the pace you set and you can change your mind about any of it.
How many sessions do people have?
Some people come three or four times, work out what they needed to work out, and stop. Some come fortnightly for a year. A few come back years later when something new arrives.
There is no package to buy and no minimum. We review how it is going every few sessions, out loud, and if it has stopped being useful I would rather you told me.
Fees
What it costs, said plainly
Start here
Free
15 minutes, phone or video
You tell me roughly what is going on and I tell you honestly whether I am the right person. If I am not, I will point you somewhere better.
Individual
$150
60 minutes, Newstead or online
For adults or for a young person on their own. Same fee whichever language we work in.
Cancelling inside 24 hours is charged in full.
Family
$175
60 minutes, two or more people
For sessions with more than one of you in the room, whether that is a parent and teenager or the whole household.
Cancelling inside 24 hours is charged in full.
Medicare. No Medicare rebate. This is a private practice.
NDIS. I welcome NDIS participants whose plans are self-managed or plan-managed. Agency-managed plans have to use registered providers, so those cannot be used here.
If cost is the thing in the way, say so on the free call. I do not run a formal concession rate, but where money is genuinely the obstacle I am glad to offer a reduced fee, usually for people on a Centrelink payment or here on a student or temporary visa. It is a normal conversation to have and I would rather have it than lose you to it.
Before you book
Questions people ask me first
Almost everyone asks me some version of this, usually in the first ten minutes and usually apologising. There is no threshold you have to clear. If something is sitting heavily enough that you have read this far down a counsellor's website, that is enough.
Different training and different regulation. Psychologists are registered with AHPRA and can offer Medicare rebates with a GP referral. Counsellors are registered through professional associations like PACFA, and counselling is private practice with no rebate. In the room the difference is often smaller than people expect, but if you need a formal assessment, a diagnosis or a mental health treatment plan, a psychologist or psychiatrist is the right person and I will say so.
Almost always, and I would rather be clear about the exceptions than vague about them. There are four. A serious and imminent risk to you or to someone else. A court order or subpoena for records. A reasonable belief that a child is being sexually abused, which Queensland law has required every adult in the state to report since 2021. And anything you ask me in writing to pass on, such as a letter to your GP. Outside those four, nothing leaves the room. With anyone under eighteen we agree the boundaries with the young person and the parent together before we start, and it is all set out in full in the terms and the privacy policy.
Both are common and neither is a problem. There are tissues, there is no clock being watched, and silence is allowed to sit there for a while. You do not have to perform being upset and you do not have to perform being fine.
Then I would like to know, and it does not hurt my feelings. Fit matters more than almost anything else in counselling. I keep a list of practitioners I trust in Brisbane, including ones who work in other languages and with things outside my scope, and I will make the referral properly rather than leaving you to start again from a search engine.
Give me more than 24 hours notice and there is no charge at all. Move it, postpone it, no explanation needed.
Inside 24 hours, the full session fee applies. That is the case for any reason, including illness, because the hour has been held for you and cannot be offered to anyone else at that notice. I know it feels firm written down. It is the standard arrangement in private practice and it is what makes it possible to keep your regular time yours.