This is a little about who I am as a person and what I do as a therapist.
I came to counselling by a circuitous route. I grew up in the Mallee, in a family of tradesmen and farmers. I dropped out of school at 17 and moved to Melbourne where I made a living for a couple of years as a musician. At 20 I left that to experience life for a year in a monastery. After returning and while working in a factory I discovered a love of reading, and especially of philosophy. So I found my way to The University of Melbourne where I studied and eventually taught philosophy.
My love for philosophy, however, was not really about scholarship, rather it was about practice: learning to live well with adversity, to find meaning in life, and to make life good. This meant that I wanted to combine psychology and philosophy in some form, and that I wanted to do these things in a practical way, working with people and their challenges. So I decided to study counselling as well. Two degrees later and this has become my career: I am a registered counsellor, with a reputation for combining philosophy and counselling in very practical ways, and I now have over a decade's experience as a professional.
In my career so far I have worked at many of the hard edges of life, such as suicide intervention and bereavement. However my driving passion is not only in helping with adversity, but moreover helping people create meaningful and satisfying lives for themselves. I have worked hard to craft a career and service specifically for that. What I offer my clients is not a mental health service, so much as counselling for personal growth, for anybody who wants to become more happy and to make their life better.
My own life is structured now in a way which integrates my counselling work into my good life. In 2018 I bought a cottage by the forest in central Victoria, where I live in an increasingly self-sustaining way, growing my own food, repairing everything myself, living on as little as necessary, and crafting my ideal life while providing the kind of therapy that I am passionate about. I do this increasingly Online (phone, video), while also seeing clients in offices in Melbourne and Bendigo.
I came to counselling by a circuitous route. I grew up in the Mallee, in a family of tradesmen and farmers. I dropped out of school at 17 and moved to Melbourne where I made a living for a couple of years as a musician. At 20 I left that to experience life for a year in a monastery. After returning and while working in a factory I discovered a love of reading, and especially of philosophy. So I found my way to The University of Melbourne where I studied and eventually taught philosophy.
My love for philosophy, however, was not really about scholarship, rather it was about practice: learning to live well with adversity, to find meaning in life, and to make life good. This meant that I wanted to combine psychology and philosophy in some form, and that I wanted to do these things in a practical way, working with people and their challenges. So I decided to study counselling as well. Two degrees later and this has become my career: I am a registered counsellor, with a reputation for combining philosophy and counselling in very practical ways, and I now have over a decade's experience as a professional.
In my career so far I have worked at many of the hard edges of life, such as suicide intervention and bereavement. However my driving passion is not only in helping with adversity, but moreover helping people create meaningful and satisfying lives for themselves. I have worked hard to craft a career and service specifically for that. What I offer my clients is not a mental health service, so much as counselling for personal growth, for anybody who wants to become more happy and to make their life better.
My own life is structured now in a way which integrates my counselling work into my good life. In 2018 I bought a cottage by the forest in central Victoria, where I live in an increasingly self-sustaining way, growing my own food, repairing everything myself, living on as little as necessary, and crafting my ideal life while providing the kind of therapy that I am passionate about. I do this increasingly Online (phone, video), while also seeing clients in offices in Melbourne and Bendigo.
