PJ is a compassionate, warm, and insightful person who has worked extensively with a number of client groups, with a particular focus on the LGBTQIA+ community and youth at risk. As a fellow-traveller, she knows from personal experience the nature of the problems that individuals face in terms of finding safety, belonging, and understanding in a world that still struggles to understand multiculturalism, gender diversity and sexual identity.
As a finalist in the Minister for Youth’s Most Outstanding Youth Worker awards in Western Australia in 2021, PJ currently lives in WA and has worked as a Youth Focus Senior Counsellor for over three years. She currently works as a Clinical Educator, delivering education and clinical supervision to graduates and students. We have been very fortunate at Open Sky Psychology, to add her to our team as an “online only” psychologist, who can offer compassionate counselling to young people aged 14 years and up.
While PJ has worked extensively with young people, she also has worked with a broad range of clients. This includes clients who are suffering distress in many of its forms, such as anxiety, depression, or complex trauma. She has been trained in trauma-informed practice, and has worked with high risk populations. PJ has also worked with client’s support systems in order to better develop their communities of care, which are often highly correlated with wellbeing. She has held leadership roles in PACFA (Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia), diversity groups, and has presented and been a panel member at conferences. She is passionate about walking alongside others as they develop, or rediscover, their self-compassion, confidence and identity.
- Anxiety and Depression
- Self-Esteem and Self-Compassion
- Issues of Culture, Acceptance and Belonging
- LGBTQIA+ support
- Developing Somatic Awareness
- Attachment Difficulties
- Gender Diversity and Transition Processes
- Sexual Identity
- Identity Development & Integration of Intersectional Identities
- Complex Trauma
- Communication Skills and Assertiveness
- Telehealth only
PJ takes an existential and psychodynamic approach in her counselling work, and combines other evidence-based approaches into her practice, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Systemic Therapy, and development of Somatic Awareness.
Qualifications
- Registered Psychologist AHPRA
- Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), Murdoch University
- Master of Counselling & Psychotherapy, Edith Cowan University
- Postgraduate Diploma of Psychology Advanced, Monash University
- Diploma of Psychological Practice, College of Professional Psychology
- Medicare Registered
