Thinking deeply about life's difficult problems, together.
Welcome. My name is Preston and I’m an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker (AMHSW). I have over a decade of experience in providing two kinds of evidence-based counselling, being Individual Psychotherapy and Systemic Family Therapy, for adults, adolescents and families who are facing complex mental health issues and difficult relationship problems. My private practice is located in Noosa Heads for face to face appointments, and I also offer online appointments Australia wide. Medicare rebates are available under the Better Access scheme where patients are referred by their GP or Psychiatrist.
My counselling practice brings with it more than a decade of clinical experience working across private practice and specialist public mental health services. My approach is narrative and systemic. This means I understand the problems that bring people to therapy exist both as the stories we tell about our lives, and, as a consequence of the patterns which exist in the relationships we are a party to. I have particular experience working alongside people experiencing complex trauma, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and psychosis.
Specialties
Anorexia and Other Eating Disorders
My work with anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders draws on extensive clinical experience and advanced training and supervision in Systemic Family Therapy. I have worked mostly with people whose lives had remained under the thumb of eating disorder despite previous treatment, including approaches such as Family-Based Treatment (FBT) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Eating Disorders (CBT-ED).
Alongside anorexia nervosa, my clinical experience includes bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, ARFID and complex eating difficulties complicated by conditions such as OCD. Our work pays particular attention to the relational patterns and wider circumstances and culture that may sustain an eating disorder, with family involvement where appropriate. I collaborate with families and the treating medical team, recognising that psychological treatment must be integrated with appropriate medical and nutritional care.
Anxiety and Stress
I work with people who are being tyrannised by persistent worry, panic and overwhelming stress, particularly when anxiety has begun to restrict their relationships, work or everyday lives.
We examine how anxiety develops, the patterns that sustain it, and the expectations, responsibilities and relationships through which it gains influence. Our work seeks to understand how anxiety has come to occupy such a powerful place in a person’s life, and to identify ways of reclaiming ground from it.
Complex Trauma and PTSD
Trauma can cast a long shadow over a person’s identity, diminishing their connection with cherished qualities, relationships, commitments and ways of being that once gave their life meaning.
The work seeks to understand the influence trauma has come to exert, challenge the conclusions it has imposed upon a person’s identity, and reconnect them with valued aspects of themselves that have been obscured but not necessarily lost.
Depression and Mood Disorder
Depression can narrow a person’s sense of what is possible, overshadow cherished relationships and commitments, and leave them feeling estranged from aspects of themselves they once valued.
Together we examine how depression has come to influence a person’s life, the circumstances and relationships in which it takes hold, and how they might reconnect with what remains meaningful to them while developing possibilities that depression has obscured.
Psychosis and Major Mental Health Issues
I have been a professional witness to the profound effects these experiences can have on a person’s identity, independence, relationships and family life. When mental health difficulties disrupt the lives people have built together, psychotherapy can provide space to make sense of what has happened, attend to the strain placed on relationships, and find ways forward amid considerable uncertainty.
I work with individuals and, where appropriate, their families to understand these experiences in context, reconnect with valued aspects of life and support recovery alongside appropriate psychiatric and medical care.
Relationships and Family Difficulties
My work with relationship and family difficulties draws on Systemic Family Therapy to understand the patterns of interaction that can leave people feeling hurt, misunderstood or unable to find a way forward together. Conflict rarely exists in isolation; over time, attempts to resolve a problem can become part of the pattern that keeps it going, placing strain on relationships that matter deeply to us. Our work examines these patterns with care, making space for different perspectives and exploring possibilities for relating to one another that may have become difficult to see.
Identity, Meaning and Life Transitions
Psychotherapy for people questioning who they are, struggling to find direction, negotiating significant life changes, or reconsidering the values and assumptions through which they have understood their lives.
Every person’s circumstances are different. These difficulties do not exist in isolation, and a diagnostic label cannot tell the whole story. My narrative and systemic approach seeks to understand how a problem has developed, how it affects a person’s life and relationships, and what possibilities might become available through examining it more closely.
Individual psychotherapy offers a space to make sense of the difficulties you are facing, understand how they have come to shape your life, and explore possibilities for change.
My practice is informed by Narrative Therapy, which recognises that problems do not define who we are, even when they have come to dominate our lives. Together, we examine the effects a problem has had on your life, relationships and sense of self, while drawing on your values, experiences and strengths to develop a different relationship with it.
Medicare rebates are available for eligible clients with a valid Mental Health Treatment Plan and referral from their GP or psychiatrist.
Systemic Family Therapy explores how the difficulties we face are shaped by the relationships, patterns of interaction and wider circumstances in which our lives unfold. Rather than locating a problem solely within one person, we look together at how it has developed, how it affects family members, and how people can become caught in patterns that are difficult to change despite their best intentions.
My approach draws on systemic and narrative traditions to help families develop new understandings of their difficulties, recognise their existing resources, and discover different ways of relating to one another. The aim is not to assign blame or decide who is right, but to create opportunities for meaningful change in the relationships that matter.
We each practice from ideas like what makes up a person, what constitutes their suffering, and how psychotherapy may ameliorate that suffering.
In supervision we work to render the assumptions inherent to those ideas overt and to subject them to useful critique.