This page is about who I am as a person, and my experience as a counsellor.
I grew up in the dust of the Mallee (north-western Victoria) in a family of tradesmen and farmers. My passion as a teenager was jazz, and I spent those years practicing drums in a hot tin shed. Accordingly, I dropped out of high school at 17 and, with a bag of clothes and a drumkit, moved to Melbourne where I made a living as a musician for a few years. It was during those years, however, that my philosophical journey began. I developed a deep interest in spirituality, and at 20 entered an overseas monastery for a year. After returning I worked in a factory for a while, and during that time discovered philosophy. In particular I fell in love with Stoicism. So I found my way into The University of Melbourne, where I studied and eventually taught philosophy.
It may be an effect of my background but for me philosophy is very practical: it is about facing hardship well; it is about finding meaning; it is about becoming a good human being; it is about making life good. No doubt this is why I was drawn to philosophy rather than, say, psychology, which is very medical and psychiatric focus. I'm not interested in disorders, I'm in interested in life: it's pain, its struggles, its possibilities, it's happiness. While teaching and doing post-graduate studies I explored how I might do philosophy in a more practical way with people. Philosophical counselling was an emerging idea at the time, thought it was done in a very academic way. I decided to study counselling properly and to throw myself into the deep end of human problems, and through that to become a philosophical counsellor of real substance.
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 broadly skilled. I worked in services as diverse as bereavement, men's relationship counselling, suicide crisis intervention, career coaching, and veteran's support. I piloted one of the first nation-wide programs in video counselling for rural Australians. I designed and delivered professional training for other counsellors. I also spent a lot of time experiencing the different approaches from the inside as a client, for my personal growth.
These days I focus on philosophical counselling in private practice (alongside a few other specialist interests, such as men's counselling). I come alive when talking with people in-depth about their life - their challenges and hopes - and in helping them make their life better. This comes back to what drew me to philosophy in the first place: facing life's hardships well; finding purpose and meaning; becoming a stronger, wiser, kinder, happier human being; and making life good. Sometimes this work is more contemplative, as when a person needs to make sense of it all or to understand themselves better, and sometimes it is very action-oriented, for example when somebody wants to become more skillful and confident in dating. There's a lot of openness in my approach. Of course, if a person just wants mindless symptom-reduction, then they are not a good fit for my counselling; my work is for people who want to reflect and to make an effort; who value insight and personal growth. I have a strong ethos that, whatever has happened to you, nonetheless you are responsible for your life - for what you do next.
Philosophical counselling is a vocation for me. Another reason I left home early was to escape life in that fibro house in the Mallee with an abusive step-father. I know what it is to struggle for years with anxiety, with bouts of despair, with finding the world a very hard place to be in. Every client I see is a different person to me, with a different story and a different psychological make-up, but my counselling works from this core starting point - that life can be very hard. And that it can also be very good. My life's passion is the art of making life good. As a counsellor I walk the talk and speak from the experience of facing real life.
That's enough about me. In 2018 I bought a cottage by a forest in central Victoria, where I now work from home, while spending a lot of time in the forest and in making music once again. I see clients by telephone or video.
I grew up in the dust of the Mallee (north-western Victoria) in a family of tradesmen and farmers. My passion as a teenager was jazz, and I spent those years practicing drums in a hot tin shed. Accordingly, I dropped out of high school at 17 and, with a bag of clothes and a drumkit, moved to Melbourne where I made a living as a musician for a few years. It was during those years, however, that my philosophical journey began. I developed a deep interest in spirituality, and at 20 entered an overseas monastery for a year. After returning I worked in a factory for a while, and during that time discovered philosophy. In particular I fell in love with Stoicism. So I found my way into The University of Melbourne, where I studied and eventually taught philosophy.
It may be an effect of my background but for me philosophy is very practical: it is about facing hardship well; it is about finding meaning; it is about becoming a good human being; it is about making life good. No doubt this is why I was drawn to philosophy rather than, say, psychology, which is very medical and psychiatric focus. I'm not interested in disorders, I'm in interested in life: it's pain, its struggles, its possibilities, it's happiness. While teaching and doing post-graduate studies I explored how I might do philosophy in a more practical way with people. Philosophical counselling was an emerging idea at the time, thought it was done in a very academic way. I decided to study counselling properly and to throw myself into the deep end of human problems, and through that to become a philosophical counsellor of real substance.
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 broadly skilled. I worked in services as diverse as bereavement, men's relationship counselling, suicide crisis intervention, career coaching, and veteran's support. I piloted one of the first nation-wide programs in video counselling for rural Australians. I designed and delivered professional training for other counsellors. I also spent a lot of time experiencing the different approaches from the inside as a client, for my personal growth.
These days I focus on philosophical counselling in private practice (alongside a few other specialist interests, such as men's counselling). I come alive when talking with people in-depth about their life - their challenges and hopes - and in helping them make their life better. This comes back to what drew me to philosophy in the first place: facing life's hardships well; finding purpose and meaning; becoming a stronger, wiser, kinder, happier human being; and making life good. Sometimes this work is more contemplative, as when a person needs to make sense of it all or to understand themselves better, and sometimes it is very action-oriented, for example when somebody wants to become more skillful and confident in dating. There's a lot of openness in my approach. Of course, if a person just wants mindless symptom-reduction, then they are not a good fit for my counselling; my work is for people who want to reflect and to make an effort; who value insight and personal growth. I have a strong ethos that, whatever has happened to you, nonetheless you are responsible for your life - for what you do next.
Philosophical counselling is a vocation for me. Another reason I left home early was to escape life in that fibro house in the Mallee with an abusive step-father. I know what it is to struggle for years with anxiety, with bouts of despair, with finding the world a very hard place to be in. Every client I see is a different person to me, with a different story and a different psychological make-up, but my counselling works from this core starting point - that life can be very hard. And that it can also be very good. My life's passion is the art of making life good. As a counsellor I walk the talk and speak from the experience of facing real life.
That's enough about me. In 2018 I bought a cottage by a forest in central Victoria, where I now work from home, while spending a lot of time in the forest and in making music once again. I see clients by telephone or video.
