This page is about who I am as a person, and my work as a counsellor.
I grew up in the dusty Mallee (north-western Victoria) in a family of tradesmen and farmers. My passion as a teenager was jazz, and I spent those years practicing the drums in an old shed, before dropping out of high school and moved to Melbourne. I made a living as a musician for a few years, however an emerging passion for understanding life gripped me, to point that I left everything and entered a monastery. A year later I returned and to Australia and, having discovered philosophy, I continued the journey by getting myself into The University of Melbourne where I studied and eventually taught it.
Philosophy for me is less an academic and more a practical passion: it is about facing hardship well; it is about finding meaning; it is about being a decent human being; it is about making life good. I decided also to study counselling so that I could combine the two disciplines and pursue those concerns in a practical way. This has become my career. Today I am a master's qualified counsellor with decades of experience, and am registered at the most senior level with the Australian Counselling Association.
During my first decade as a counsellor I worked within organisations with the aim of becoming widely competent. I counselled within services as diverse as bereavement, men's counselling, suicide intervention, career coaching, and veteran's support. I took deep dives into the mainstream approaches to counselling and psychotherapy - humanistic, cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic. I pursued professional projects of passion, such as piloting the first nation-wide, government-funded service in video counselling for rural men. Alongside all of this I created a successful private practice in Melbourne, offering a philosophical approach to counselling known as Existential Therapy.
These days I focus on my private practice. By contrast with a clinical psychologist - who diagnoses and treats mental disorders - my professional focus is a continuation of my philosophical passion: I help people deal with their hardships and challenges in life, I help people become more happy, I help them create a flourishing and meaningful life for themselves. My work is deeply contemplative with some clients - for example helping them define who they are and what matters in life - and very practical with others - for example helping people develop confidence at work or in dating. There is a balance of pragmatism and depth in all my work; the musician, monk, and philosopher from a rural tradesman family, is deeply embedded in my temperament as a therapist.
While I have a deep capacity to hear and help with suffering - for example I worked for years in a bereavement-after-suicide counselling - I am also very warm and positive in my own nature. Like many people I have suffered plenty in my own life, but I've worked hard to make an art out of happiness, and I know from a professional perspective but also personal experience what tends to work. Of course, I am very alive to the fact that, despite our commonalities, we are also all very different from each other for all sorts of reasons; I have a talent for, and a strong focus on, helping my clients see their particular strengths and potential and worth. Indeed a vital part of my work is helping people see themselves much more clearly, while coming to value themselves much more and feel more confident in the world. I place a high value on the therapeutic relationship (which is something missing for many people when they visit, say, a psychologist) - I have a talent for liking people, for seeing where they are coming from, for getting a sense of what it's like to be them, and for perceiving their talents and possibilities both for coping well and for making life better.
That's enough about me. In 2018 I bought a cottage by a forest in central Victoria, from where I do this work that I love, while once again working as a jazz and RnB drummer in the region.
I grew up in the dusty Mallee (north-western Victoria) in a family of tradesmen and farmers. My passion as a teenager was jazz, and I spent those years practicing the drums in an old shed, before dropping out of high school and moved to Melbourne. I made a living as a musician for a few years, however an emerging passion for understanding life gripped me, to point that I left everything and entered a monastery. A year later I returned and to Australia and, having discovered philosophy, I continued the journey by getting myself into The University of Melbourne where I studied and eventually taught it.
Philosophy for me is less an academic and more a practical passion: it is about facing hardship well; it is about finding meaning; it is about being a decent human being; it is about making life good. I decided also to study counselling so that I could combine the two disciplines and pursue those concerns in a practical way. This has become my career. Today I am a master's qualified counsellor with decades of experience, and am registered at the most senior level with the Australian Counselling Association.
During my first decade as a counsellor I worked within organisations with the aim of becoming widely competent. I counselled within services as diverse as bereavement, men's counselling, suicide intervention, career coaching, and veteran's support. I took deep dives into the mainstream approaches to counselling and psychotherapy - humanistic, cognitive-behavioural, psychodynamic. I pursued professional projects of passion, such as piloting the first nation-wide, government-funded service in video counselling for rural men. Alongside all of this I created a successful private practice in Melbourne, offering a philosophical approach to counselling known as Existential Therapy.
These days I focus on my private practice. By contrast with a clinical psychologist - who diagnoses and treats mental disorders - my professional focus is a continuation of my philosophical passion: I help people deal with their hardships and challenges in life, I help people become more happy, I help them create a flourishing and meaningful life for themselves. My work is deeply contemplative with some clients - for example helping them define who they are and what matters in life - and very practical with others - for example helping people develop confidence at work or in dating. There is a balance of pragmatism and depth in all my work; the musician, monk, and philosopher from a rural tradesman family, is deeply embedded in my temperament as a therapist.
While I have a deep capacity to hear and help with suffering - for example I worked for years in a bereavement-after-suicide counselling - I am also very warm and positive in my own nature. Like many people I have suffered plenty in my own life, but I've worked hard to make an art out of happiness, and I know from a professional perspective but also personal experience what tends to work. Of course, I am very alive to the fact that, despite our commonalities, we are also all very different from each other for all sorts of reasons; I have a talent for, and a strong focus on, helping my clients see their particular strengths and potential and worth. Indeed a vital part of my work is helping people see themselves much more clearly, while coming to value themselves much more and feel more confident in the world. I place a high value on the therapeutic relationship (which is something missing for many people when they visit, say, a psychologist) - I have a talent for liking people, for seeing where they are coming from, for getting a sense of what it's like to be them, and for perceiving their talents and possibilities both for coping well and for making life better.
That's enough about me. In 2018 I bought a cottage by a forest in central Victoria, from where I do this work that I love, while once again working as a jazz and RnB drummer in the region.
