About & Approach
I am a registered psychologist based in East Melbourne, offering individual therapy in person and via telehealth. I work with adults across a range of difficulties, with particular interests in relationships and attachment, grief and loss, self-esteem and sense of self, and perinatal mental health.
My approach makes room for both the difficulties that bring you to therapy and a deeper understanding of the emotional, relational, and coping patterns that may be contributing to them.
How I work
I offer therapy that is collaborative, reflective and relational. Together, we explore what is difficult, how it has developed, and how it is experienced in your life and relationships. We also pay attention to what emerges between us in therapy and how this may reflect experiences in other relationships.
Through talking and thinking together, experiences that have been difficult to recognise, understand or express can gradually become clearer. This can bring greater understanding of yourself, your relationships and your emotional life.
What sessions with me tend to look like:
Weekly 50-minute sessions
Reflective, collaborative sessions rather than a fixed program
Space to bring what feels important, without needing to arrive with a clear agenda
Curiosity about feelings, relationships, and recurring themes, including those that may not be immediately obvious
Attention to connections between earlier experiences and what is happening in your life now
Room to notice when feelings or experiences are difficult to approach or put into words
A relational psychodynamic therapy approach
My approach is relational psychodynamic and attachment-informed, drawing on contemporary relational psychoanalytic thinking. This involves paying attention to how earlier experiences and ongoing patterns of feeling, thinking, relating and coping shape how we experience ourselves and others in the present.
An important part of the work is becoming more aware of patterns that may not be immediately obvious: how you protect yourself from difficult feelings, how you think about yourself and others, what you long for or fear in relationships, and how you navigate closeness, distance, conflict and vulnerability. These ways of coping often developed for understandable reasons. Recognising and understanding them can bring greater freedom in how you respond to yourself, others and your emotional life.
The therapeutic relationship is also central to this approach. Familiar ways of relating can emerge between us, giving us an opportunity to notice and understand them together. As safety and trust develop, experiences that have been difficult to feel, express or understand alone may become easier to approach.
Over time
Over time, greater understanding can bring more freedom in how you feel, think, respond, and relate, and in how you navigate life’s challenges and opportunities.
Is this approach right for me?
The first few sessions give us time to understand what has brought you to therapy, and for you to get a sense of me and how I work. From there, we can think together about what might be helpful and whether this way of working feels right for you.
I am currently offering short- to medium-term therapy to explore the particular difficulties bringing you to therapy.
About Louisa
I came to psychology by a winding road rather than a straight one. Before training as a psychologist, I worked for an airline overseas, which allowed me to get to know people from many different backgrounds. I was then drawn to psychology by a curiosity about people, relationships, and how we come to understand ourselves and others.
What I value most in therapy is the experience of thinking together: becoming curious about something that may have been difficult to feel, understand, or put into words, while making room for the human moments that can emerge too. Sometimes that means sitting together with difficult emotions; sometimes it means having a good laugh.
I don’t take lightly the trust involved in allowing someone into your inner world, and I bring care and curiosity to my work.
The original photograph behind the mountain landscape on the home page, taken in Nepal.
Clinical Background
My clinical background includes work across inpatient, outpatient, community, and private practice settings with people experiencing a range of mental health presentations.
Registration & Memberships
Registered Psychologist (PSY0002697080) – Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
Clinical Psychology Registrar – AHPRA
Member of the Australian Association of Psychologists
Member of the International Association of Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
Member of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health
Registered with The Perinatal Loss Centre
ANZAED Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinician
Qualifications & Education
Master of Clinical Psychology – Queensland University of Technology
Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Honours Psychology) – Queensland University of Technology
Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) – RMIT University
Additional training in psychodynamic psychotherapy, attachment-informed therapy, perinatal mental health, Metacognitive Reflection and Insight Therapy (MERIT), and Focal Psychodynamic Therapy for Anorexia Nervosa (FPT).
