How a writer became a women's therapist

I came to psychotherapy sideways. I'm a writer — my childhood dream was to make movies! But life had other plans, as it often does, and in my late 20s I found myself navigating complex trauma and bereavement. I got to a point where I wondered how I was going to make it through the day. Then I found a wonderful therapist.

Healing was possible? Healing was real? That discovery changed the direction of my life.

I wanted to understand what I was experiencing, so I started studying psychotherapy. I'm now a holistic psychotherapist, registered with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). I work from a foundation in process-oriented psychology and person-centred counselling, specialising in therapy for women.

To this day, I am fascinated by the nature of transformation — how life will push and squeeze us until a new vision pulls us over the edge and into a new way of being. What I keep discovering is that we need support to cross those thresholds. We're simply not wired to do this work in isolation.

Healing and creativity have always been interwoven — in my mind, this is ancient wisdom, not a new idea. I wanted to offer a space that honoured both, so in 2025 I opened my own private practice and named it Poet. It is a deeply creative process, the process of becoming oneself!

If we can look at our lives through a poet's eyes, we can hold the light and the darkness, the comedy and the tragedy, as all necessary to the whole. We are all artists of our own lives — and from that perspective, it's okay to be messy, eccentric and unfinished!

I work with a feminist lens. Often a woman will come to see me feeling she needs to "fix" herself — her anger, her sensitivity, her disconnection. As we slow down together, it frequently becomes clear that many of these responses are entirely sane reactions to damaging structures she's been living inside.

True self-compassion, and learning how to stop internalising oppression and criticism, becomes a way to reclaim person-hood and find freedom. The positive ripple effects in families and relationships still blow my mind. A pattern interrupted can shift a whole life. To witness those shifts — that's the most incredible part of this work.

I now offer sessions online, which I've found actually suits this kind of deep work beautifully. There's something about being in your own space that helps people open up. It's also more affordable and convenient — which matters when you're already overwhelmed.

I'm a Burgh local, and have been all my life. I've done 'the big lap' twice and backpacked all over the world, but I always come home — in the words of my dear late father, "it's paradise". Unlike the rest of my ocean-obsessed family, I'm a freshwater girl, so I'm out here swimming in the creek, or trying (and failing) to tire out my working dog with tennis balls up behind the tip! 

To contact Jade, visit www.poetholisticpsychotherapy.com.au or email jade@poetholisticpsychotherapy.com.au