Alessandra’s qualifications are a Bachelor of Psychology, a Masters Degree in Clinical and Community Psychology from Italy, and a PhD in Developmental Psychology. Throughout her career Alessandra has worked in private practice, outpatient hospital clinics, psychiatric clinics and university settings. In addition to practicing as a therapist Alessandra has had an active career as a researcher in both academia and government, including working in New Zealand as a Post Doc with the Christchurch Health and Developmental study, and at UNSW with the NSW Child Development Study. Alessandra’s main areas of interest and expertise include anxiety disorders, depression, complex grief, mood difficulties, long term life patterns, relationships, couple therapy, stress, coping, life transitions, loss, emotional health, self esteem, self image and eating problems. In her work with individuals, Alessandra offers both short term and longer term therapy. She has trained in psychodynamic as well as cognitive behavioural traditions, including Schema Therapy, Motivational Interviewing and other therapeutic modalities, enabling her to tailor her approach to the needs of each individual person. An area of particular interest and expertise for Alessandra is complex grief and depression, and adjustment disorders. Alessandra particularly enjoys helping people navigate very stressful situations involving change, such as loss of a job, relationship break-up, and grief, ultimately finding ways to see their lives from new and creative perspectives. In her work with couples, Alessandra blends attachment theory with Imago therapy elements and the more traditional Behavioural Framework. Alessandra helps couples to understand the origin of their conflict as an opportunity to grow and develop, and helps them learn how to communicate more authentically and effectively, in order to open possibilities for both members of the couple. Having lived and worked in various different countries, Alessandra is adept at working with different population groups experiencing a diverse range of circumstances, and is skilled at helping immigrants and others experiencing stress and depression when adjusting to different social structures, values, cultures and expectations. Alessandra’s research over the years has encompassed child development, anxiety and conduct problems, bonding attachment and later socio-emotional adjustment, schizophrenia epidemiology, impact of early life neglect on later development, and the antecedents of antisocial and criminal behaviours. Alessandra has worked as Senior Researcher with large administrative longitudinal linked datasets in universities and Government and she is now working with the Cancer Institute of NSW. She has written several book chapters and published numerous academic papers in peer reviewed journals. Alessandra brings great warmth, support, insight and dedication to her work with clients. Against a strong academic and intellectual background, she sees her greatest strength as her ability to relate well with other people and understand their needs. She is motivated by a deep sense of compassion and a commitment to helping others. Alessandra is fully registered as general Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia, and is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and the Italian Psychologist Board

Emma’s qualifications are Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours in Psychology, and a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Edinburgh. Emma has 20 years experience as a clinical psychologist, and has spent the majority of her career in the public mental health system in Australia and in the UK. She has worked with a diverse range of issues and individuals and is skilled in a broad variety of therapeutic approaches. In particular Emma specialises in complex difficulties that have arisen from a network of interacting (but often hidden) factors including: childhood experience; peer relationships; partnerships; traumatic experiences and adjustment to new life roles or work situations. Her breadth of experience with multiple therapy models enables her to customise therapy to the individual’s needs and life situation and offer both short term and longer term therapy. Emma has significant experience working with individuals suffering from: depression and other mood disorders; anxiety and stress; low self-esteem; relationship problems; traumatic life events; adjustment disorders; grief; and life dissatisfaction. The foundation of Emma’s therapeutic training is Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, in addition to which she possesses further training and expertise working within family systems therapy, individual psychodynamic therapy, group and couples therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Emma has offered supervision and training to other psychologists for the past 11 years and has contributed to psychology doctoral programmes in the UK. She consistently extends her own professional development via training and supervision. Emma is a warm and personable therapist, with a keen genuine interest in and concern for her clients, and an attuned sensitivity to their needs. Emma is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, and has specialist endorsement as a Clinical Psychologist.

Lissa is the principal of the practice. Her qualifications are a PhD in Psychology and a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology, from the University of New South Wales. She also has a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies, and a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Psychology and Psychobiology), with Honours in Psychology. Lissa has over 20 years counselling experience and has been practice principal for 13 years. Lissa cares very deeply about the clients of her practice. She is committed to bringing together a team of therapists who are both warm and compassionate, and highly skilled and qualified, adept at understanding and meeting each individual person's needs. Lissa's key ares of interest and expertise involve relationships and couples therapy, anxiety and anxiety disorders, longstanding life patterns and complex difficulties, trauma and childhood trauma, and self worth and wellbeing. With respect to couples therapy, Lissa has received training from world leaders in couples therapy and research, and is dedicated to best-practice approaches to couples therapy. She works to help couples to turn their problems into vehicles for greater closeness and intimacy. As part of this process she helps couples to understand what drives their problems and to gain new perspectives on the issues that divide them and on their patterns of interaction. Ultimately she helps couples to interact with each other in ways that heal wounds, open new avenues of understanding, and revive connection, trust and love. Other relationship issues that Lissa works with include: dating; relationship breakdown; recurrent patterns in relationships; difficulty forming or maintaining relationships; beginning relationships; learning to relate to others in more constructive ways; and any other difficulties in relationships with partners, colleagues, family or friends. Lissa also has a particular affinity for helping people to come to terms with trauma, whether recent trauma or trauma experienced in childhood. She has worked with many individuals to help them process their traumatic experiences in a way that disentangles their trauma reactions from their current day-to-day experience. She also helps people to heal from trauma in a way that restores equilibrium and a sense of safety, trust, self-worth and stability. With respect to anxiety, Lissa has extensive experience working with social anxiety, fear of public speaking, excessive worry, performance anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, sleep difficulties, health anxiety and generalised anxiety. Other areas of interest and expertise for Lissa include: grief and loss, mood difficulties, stress and work stress, life balance, self-exploration and self-understanding and navigating life transitions and challenges. Lissa has received numerous academic awards, including the University Medal and the Australian Psychological Society Prize. She has taught Psychology to undergraduate students at University, and has presented her honours and doctoral research at national and international conferences. Her PhD research involved processes of reality-perception, self-concept and interpersonal influence, and her honours research examined interactions between immunity, stress, and diet. She has also co-supervised Masters level research investigating autobiographical memory processes in social phobia. Lissa is frequently contacted for comment by the media and writes columns on topics ranging from personal health and wellbeing to social issues. Click here to view a selection of columns and articles. She also prevoiusly served on the Australian Psychological Society Public Interest Advisory Group. She is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, a member of the Australian Association for Cognitive and Behaviour Therapy, the Australian Psychological Society, the Australian Psychological Society College of Clinical Psychologists, and the Anxiety Practitioners Network.

Theresa’s qualifications are a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with Honours, a Masters in Counselling Psychology, a PhD in Psychology and a Masters of Education. Theresa came to psychology after a career as a special needs teacher, with expertise in hearing impaired and gifted and talented learning, having worked as a head of department in a school for the D/deaf and as a lecturer in both psychology and education. As a psychologist, Theresa’s key areas of interest and expertise include relationships and couples therapy, coping, self-esteem, depression and mood difficulties, anxiety, grief and loss, trauma, and navigating life transitions, difficulty and change. Theresa also works with more severe clinical conditions and disorders. Her approach in therapy is based on the individual, couple or family’s need with an open and collaborative approach guiding her work. In her couples and relationships work, Theresa has a keen understanding of the many challenges that couples and families can face, and particularly enjoys helping couples to improve their relationships, deepen their connection, and contend with the pressures impacting upon them. In her child and family work, Theresa has offered support to children, adolescents, parents and care-givers for a variety of challenges related to development and adjustment. This includes but is not limited to understanding and working with learning disability, physical disability, self-esteem and behavioural and communication problems. Theresa works from both a Systemic and Attachment based perspective to understand the multiple influences on the individual and the family. Theresa enjoys working with clients who have experienced childhood trauma to help them process these experiences and to help prevent cycles of trauma from occurring. In individual therapy, Theresa enjoys working with clients on a range of challenges faced and is able to use different approaches to suit individual client needs. Her approach favours helping clients to gain insight into the ways in which they perceive themselves and others, and understand the ways in which they engage with their environment. This is achieved by highlighting repetitive behaviour cycles that are often enacted without awareness. This insight is understood to facilitate growth and change in the client by collaboratively discovering new ways of being. This type of work often includes examining early life experiences and the unconscious processes that govern behaviour. Theresa is happy to work with clients in short and long term therapy. Theresa has presented papers at conferences and has been invited to speak at staff training sessions at schools on various topics related to education and psychology. Her research for her Master’s in education was based on understanding the social-emotional responses of special needs learners in a mainstream school setting. Her psychology Honour’s research was based on the efficacy of informed consent in HIV vaccine trials and her psychology Master’s and PhD research was based on the promotion of holistic wellbeing in a school for the D/deaf. Her post-doctoral research was based on the holistic development of D/deaf and hard-of-hearing learners using a Bilingual-Bicultural model of education. Theresa loves her work and is a very dedicated, warm and engaging therapist, with a keen sense of the privilege and responsibility that her role involves. She enjoys accompanying her clients on their path through difficulty, and grounds her work in an attuned and genuine understanding of her clients and their needs.She is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia.

Laura’s qualifications are a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology and a Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology. Prior to qualifying as a psychologist, Laura completed a Masters Degree in Sociology. Laura has 18 years experience as a Clinical Psychologist working with both adults and children in private practice, school and hospital settings. She provides therapy for both individuals and couples. Laura’s areas of expertise and experience are broad and include depression, anxiety, post-natal difficulties, work stress, loss, life stage difficulties, immigration, parenting and relationship issues. A particular area of interest and expertise for Laura is working with complex difficulties or lifelong patterns, such as re-ocurring themes in relationships, self-worth, careers or family. Laura helps her clients to understand and redefine these patterns in ways that make sense of and heal causal influences, such as childhood experiences, trauma, or life events, and that cultivate new ways of experiencing themselves and their life. She is also interested in helping clients to understand how socio-economic and cultural factors influence their mental health. With respect to relationships, Laura works to understand how individuals and couples enter into and maintain cycles of conflict, and how these can best be resolved. She assists couples to turn their conflicts into opportunities for greater closeness and healing, and to re-establish constructive patterns of interacting. Laura also enjoys helping young adults with their transition through an important and challenging lifestage. She helps with identity, sexuality and relationship issues as well as difficulties with education, the workplace, anxiety and depression. Another area of interest and expertise for Laura is parenting and parent-child relationships. Laura enjoys working with parents and their infants and children under five and can help with sleeping, feeding, toileting, behavioural and developmental issues. She has published articles on topics related to parenting of infants and perinatal issues. Laura has extensive experience helping the parents of children with learning disorders and other issues. She has achieved great success with the parents of children who are battling with school and social difficulties, divorce, anxiety and depression. In addition, Laura is skilled at helping parents cope with their child’s learning difficulties, attention problems, Aspergers syndrome and disabilities. Laura has also acted as an Employee Assistance provider, offering work-related counselling and therapy for issues such as work stress and anxiety and work-life balance. In addition to providing therapy, Laura has conducted Master’s level research on parenting and bereavement, and has received numerous academic awards and scholarships. She has published several articles in journals on topics related to children and parenting, and has presented to other Psychologists and mental health professionals at numerous conferences and workshops. Laura’s approach to therapy primarily psychodynamic, but she integrates this with other modalities to suit the needs of each individual client. She aims to help clients develop greater self- understanding, self -acceptance and a more mindful approach to their lives. Laura enjoys working with clients from diverse cultural backgrounds. She is a dedicated, warm and sensitive therapist, who sees the therapist-client relationship as a central part of the healing process. Laura is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia, and has specialist endorsement as a Clinical Psychologist. She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and the Australian Psychological Society College of Clinical Psychologists.

Linda completed a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Psychology at Queensland University in 1983, and later in her career completed her Masters degree in Clinical Psychology at Macquarie University. Linda has many years experience providing couples therapy and helping people to navigate their relationships, particularly with respect to issues involving parenting, family, communication, conflict, domestic violence, anger management and couple dynamics. Between 2005 and 2012 Linda was the senior counsellor and program co-ordinator for a community-based service specialising in couple and family therapy and relationship issues. In that capacity, as well as providing therapy she supervised and trained other therapists and oversaw program content, including co-writing a psycho-educational group program for separated parents in conflict. Linda has also facilitated groups for women who have experienced domestic violence. As well as couple and family therapy, Linda is experienced at providing both short term and long term individual therapy and treatment. She has worked as an Employee Assistance Provider delivering short term therapy for individuals experiencing anxiety, depression, stress, workplace conflict, adjustment to change, grief, and relationship difficulties. She has also worked in private practice and non-government organisations providing short and long term therapy for a wide range of issues including anxiety, depression, grief, relationship difficulties, self esteem difficulties and the impact of family of origin experiences in the development of longstanding life patterns. In addition to providing generalist counselling and therapy, Linda has completed training in a specialist anxiety disorder service providing assessment and treatment of anxiety disorders such as social anxiety, panic disorder, generalised anxiety, excessive worry, and other anxiety conditions. Linda also works in a specialist medical clinic providing counselling to individuals and couples regarding fertility related issues. In her clinical approach Linda uses a range of therapy modalities, having found that flexibility is more likely to lead to change. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Schema-Focused CBT, Integrative Behavioural Couple Therapy (IBCT), Systemic, Solution-Focussed and Narrative frameworks inform her therapeutic approach, as well as the knowledge and understandings gained from clients. What Linda enjoys most about client work is the opportunity to connect with people and undertake a collaborative process of discovery that leads to life-enhancing change. She aims ultimately to empower people to better recognize their own strengths, make sense of their more counterproductive patterns, and find more effective ways to manage themselves and their relationships with others. Linda is fully registered with the Psychology Board of Australia and is a member of the Australian Psychological Society.

Rhiannon’s qualifications are a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling. As part of her ongoing professional development Rhiannon is also a student sexologist, currently completing a Master of Science in Medicine (Sexual and Reproductive Health) Psychosexual Therapy. In addition to private practice, Rhiannon works as a lecturer teaching counselling subjects to students completing their Bachelor of Counselling. Key areas of interest and expertise for Rhiannon involve relationships and relationship therapy. Rhiannon helps individuals as well as couples to identify patterns in communication styles that perpetuate dysfunction and miscommunication. She is passionate about exploring with clients how social, cultural and economic factors impact wellbeing both individually and within relationships. Rhiannon strives to promote mutual understanding between individuals in order to challenge cycles of conflict and re-establish trust as well as positive methods of interaction. In addition to relationship issues, Rhiannon’s areas of expertise and experience are broad and include anxiety, depression, financial/employment stress, grief and loss, trauma, life stage challenges and communication issues. Rhiannon also has particular interest and expertise working with clients experiencing sexual health concerns. Rhiannon previously worked as a sexual health counsellor in a sexual health clinic in Sydney, gaining broad experience in a number of areas relating to sexual health and wellbeing, working with a diverse range of client backgrounds. She has extensive experience providing psychoeducation to clients on sexual expression, pleasure, negotiating safe sex practices and consent, and improving interpersonal communication skills within relationships. Rhiannon is respectful of all consensual forms of sexual expression and strives to provide a practice that is inclusive of all identities. She is knowledgeable about racial trauma, gender diversity, and trans and non-binary issues. She sees self-esteem, security and sexuality all as integral components of overall wellbeing to which every person is entitled. Rhiannon’s experiences have given her a passionate dedication to fighting against social injustice. Through her education and work experience, Rhiannon has developed a deep understanding on the inequalities and injustices faced by minority groups within Australia. Rhiannon is dedicated to decolonising her worldview and empowering individuals who have had to overcome violence, discrimination or hardship because of their identity. Rhiannon works from a trauma-informed framework and has a particular interest in helping trauma survivors overcome their experiences so that they are able to thrive and enjoy healthy relationships and healthy sexuality, both with themselves and others. As well as her work as a counsellor, Rhiannon has taught university subjects to health science and nursing students in the subjects of interpersonal communication and communication and diversity. Rhiannon takes a holistic approach to therapy, inviting her clients to collaborate and tailor the approach to their own needs. She brings an integrative set of skills drawn from her experience in clinical counselling and as a university educator. She She is non-judgemental, inclusive, and dedicated to empowering clients to collaborate with her as part of their journey. Rhiannon has extensive experience working from an evidence-based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach, incorporating other styles of intervention such as methods from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Mindfulness strategies and Psychoeducational tools. Rhiannon aims to identify individual and relational strengths and positive coping strategies with her clients. Rhiannon always upholds professional ethical standards. She is registered with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) and abides by the Code of Conduct for Unregistered Health Practitioners.