Working with adults navigating neurodivergence, trauma and anxiety
This page is about ongoing therapy. If you're looking for a formal adult ADHD or autism assessment rather than therapy, you'll find that on the ADHD & Autism Assessment page.
People come to therapy for many reasons: stress, low mood, uncertainty, internal conflict, relationship patterns, burnout, grief and loss, or simply a desire to understand themselves more deeply. I work with a range of adults, with extensive experience supporting neurodivergent women, including those navigating late diagnosis of ADHD and/or autism, perimenopause and hormonal transitions, and the burnout that so often follows years of high-functioning masking. Many of the women I work with are also raising neurodivergent children, bringing a particular kind of relational complexity and emotional load that deserves its own space. If any of that sounds like your life, you are in the right place.
More broadly, many of the people I work with are thoughtful, capable adults who have spent years managing responsibilities and supporting others, and are now seeking space to pause, reflect, and consider what the next stage of life looks like for them. Many are also self-employed, freelance, or working in creative and design fields, a pattern that shows up often among neurodivergent women, who tend to build working lives that suit how they actually think rather than fitting themselves into structures that do not.
My approach is grounded, supportive and collaborative, creating space to explore experiences that may feel confusing or overwhelming, while supporting practical and meaningful change at a manageable pace.Below are some of the areas I commonly support clients with. In practice these experiences often overlap and influence one another. Therapy involves working together to understand that complexity, gently separating out contributing factors while holding a broader, integrated understanding of your experience.
NEURODIVERGENCE-AFFIRMING SUPPORT
Many adults, particularly women, come to therapy when they begin to wonder whether ADHD, autism, or both (AuDHD) may be part of their experience. For some, this recognition emerges through personal reflection, conversations with others, or learning more about neurodivergence and finding that long-standing patterns suddenly make more sense. For others it follows a formal diagnosis or the start of medication, bringing its own questions about identity, relationships, reflections on the past, and what comes next.
I am experienced in supporting neurodivergent women, including those who identify as AuDHD, and those who are recognising, often for the first time in midlife, that ADHD or autism may explain experiences they have carried their whole lives. Hormonal changes, including perimenopause, can be especially destabilising for women with ADHD or autism, and coping strategies that have worked for years can begin to fall away during this stage of life. If this resonates, you are not alone, and it is not a personal failing.
Support may be focused around emotional regulation, executive functioning, sensory sensitivities, identity, and relationships. This can also extend to burnout, particularly for those who have spent years masking, overcompensating, or functioning at a high level while carrying a great deal internally.
I offer a neurodiversity-affirming, collaborative space to explore these patterns, develop practical strategies, and recognise your strengths with compassion and clarity.
ADHD and autism assessment
Some people come to me knowing they want therapy. Others want to know first whether ADHD or autism explains a pattern that has never quite made sense, and what to do with the answer either way. I offer formal diagnostic assessment for adults, 18 and over, by telehealth across Australia. Assessment uses structured diagnostic interviews, the DIVA-5 for ADHD and the MIGDAS-2 for autism, alongside questionnaires covering camouflaging, sensory and interoceptive experience, alexithymia, executive function, trauma, mood and daily functioning.
ADHD and autism co-occur far more often than they were once thought to, and in people who have masked heavily the picture is rarely obvious. So the pathway is chosen with you at the end of a 90 minute initial session, once your history and questionnaire results are in front of us. You can learn more on the assessments page.
WOMEN'S HEALTH, PERIMENOPAUSE AND MENOPAUSE
Hormonal changes across the lifespan, including perimenopause, menopause, and cyclical hormonal patterns, can influence mood, energy, sleep, cognition, identity, relationships and stress tolerance. These experiences are often complex and can intersect with life stage shifts, roles, and broader questions about meaning, direction and self.
I offer a reflective, supportive space to explore and make sense of these experiences, including the emotional, relational and physiological aspects. Therapy may include developing mind-body strategies to support regulation, understanding changing needs and boundaries, and navigating challenges, including working with your medical care team, with greater clarity, advocacy and self-compassion.
PMDD and cyclical mood change. For some women, mood, irritability and capacity shift predictably with the menstrual cycle, sometimes severely. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is frequently missed or attributed to something else, and the pattern is often clearer once it is tracked. Therapy can support recognising the cycle, planning around it, and separating what is cyclical from what is not.
COPING PATTERNS: ALCOHOL, FOOD AND TECHNOLOGY
Coping behaviours such as alcohol use, binge eating or excessive screen use often develop in response to stress, overwhelm, emotional pain, or needs that are not being met elsewhere. They usually made sense when they started, which is part of why they are hard to shift.
Drinking in midlife is worth naming specifically. For many women it increases quietly during perimenopause, in a period when sleep is broken, mood is less predictable, and the demands of work, parenting and often ageing parents have not eased. It is frequently the only thing in the day that belongs to you. That makes it difficult to look at, particularly for women who are functioning well by every external measure and who do not recognise themselves in the language of addiction.
For neurodivergent women there can be an additional layer. Alcohol, food and screens all reliably change how the nervous system feels, and for someone who has spent the day masking, regulating and holding it together, that reliability is the point.
I offer a space to understand these patterns with curiosity rather than judgement, and to work out what they are doing for you before working out what might do it better. This is not abstinence-based work unless that is what you want. For many people the useful question is not whether to stop but what they are reaching for, and what else could meet that need.
WORK, CREATIVITY AND RUNNING YOUR OWN THING
Neurodivergent women are disproportionately self-employed, freelance, and working in creative fields. That is often a good fit: autonomy over your time, work that engages genuine interest, no open-plan office. It also removes the scaffolding a conventional job provides, which means executive function, pacing and boundaries have to be built rather than imposed.
I work with creatives, including writers, artists, designers and independent professionals, as well as adults who are re-evaluating their work, direction and sense of purpose. Creative work often involves a complex interplay between structure and freedom, expression and self-doubt, vision and follow-through. Clients may seek support for creative blocks, difficulty sustaining momentum, perfectionism, or the vulnerability that comes with sharing their work. Others are navigating broader questions of identity, including career change, loss of direction, or a desire to reconnect with meaningful and values-aligned work.
I also work with women in small business and leadership roles who are managing the psychological and practical demands of running a business alongside multiple other responsibilities. That can involve financial pressure, visibility, responsibility for others, and relentless decision-making. Common areas of focus include boundaries, overwork, burnout, self-doubt, people-pleasing, and the tension between growth and sustainability.
Therapy offers a reflective and structured space to step back from daily operational demands and look more clearly at how you are working. This includes understanding the internal patterns that shape creativity and work habits, strengthening decision-making, clarifying values, and developing sustainable ways of engaging with professional life.
With over 20 years of experience as a small business owner and as former founding Director of the Coastal Towns Business Chamber, I bring an integrated approach that combines psychological understanding with a grounded sense of small business realities. The focus is on sustainable, values-aligned growth that is both professionally effective and personally manageable.
CHRONIC ILLNESS, PAIN AND FATIGUE
Living with a long-term physical condition asks something of you that is rarely acknowledged. Persistent pain, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, hypermobility spectrum disorders and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, dysautonomia, autoimmune conditions and other ongoing illness all place demands that go well beyond the medical.
If this is your experience, you have probably spent years being assessed one system at a time. You may have been told your symptoms are anxiety, or that you are managing well, or that nothing further can be found. I am a psychologist, not a physician, so the medical management of these conditions sits with your treating doctors. What therapy can offer is support with what living inside a body like this asks of you: pacing and the grief that comes with it, the exhaustion of self-advocacy, medical mistrust after being dismissed, the identity shift when capacity changes, and the way pain and fatigue interact with attention, memory and emotional regulation.
There is also a significant overlap between several of these conditions and neurodivergence, which is increasingly recognised in the research. Where both are present they tend to compound each other, and it helps to work with someone who is not treating them as unrelated. Working somatically matters here, and it needs care. For people who have learned to override their body's signals in order to keep functioning, or who have been told those signals are imagined, turning attention toward physical experience can be unwelcome. We go at a pace you set, and pushing through is not the aim.
BURNOUT, BOUNDARIES AND WORK STRESS
Burnout often emerges from chronic over-responsibility, caregiving roles, people-pleasing, perfectionism or unsustainable demands. It can also arise in people who appear highly capable externally while internally feeling depleted or overwhelmed.
Autistic burnout and ADHD burnout have their own shape. They tend to follow long periods of masking and sustained effort, and they often present as a loss of skills and capacity that were previously reliable, rather than as low mood alone. Recognising it for what it is usually changes what helps.
Therapy supports exploration of the boundaries, values and patterns that influence wellbeing, and the development of more sustainable ways of engaging with work and life.
STRESS AND ANXIETY
Stress and worry can affect mood, sleep, decision-making and physical wellbeing. Therapy offers space to explore these experiences with curiosity and compassion, understand the patterns that contribute to overwhelm, and develop strategies that support steadiness and clarity.
LOW MOOD AND DEPRESSION
Periods of low mood or depression can affect motivation, energy, sleep, self-perception and your sense of connection with others. I offer a supportive space to understand the emotional, relational and life experiences that may be contributing, while developing practical and compassionate ways of responding to these patterns over time.
TRAUMA, INCLUDING COMPLEX TRAUMA AND PTSD
Difficult or overwhelming experiences can leave emotional and physical traces that shape how you respond to the world. My approach integrates EMDR, somatic awareness and trauma-informed principles, supporting exploration and regulation at a pace that feels safe and grounded. Learn more on my EMDR page.
RELATIONSHIPS AND ATTACHMENT
Therapy can support understanding of relationship patterns, communication challenges, intimacy concerns and attachment dynamics. This includes inclusive support for diverse relationship structures, and exploration of how relational experiences shape our emotional world and sense of self.
LIFE TRANSITIONS
Changes in identity, roles, relationships or circumstances, including separation and divorce, parenting, career change or retirement, can bring uncertainty and emotional complexity. Therapy supports reflection, meaning-making and grounded decision-making during these times.
GRIEF AND LOSS
Experiences of loss may include the death of a loved one, relationship endings including friendships, health changes, or more subtle forms of loss such as shifts in identity, roles or life direction. Grief can be complex and does not always follow a predictable path. I offer a supportive space to process grief at your own pace, making room for both emotional pain and meaning-making, while gently supporting adjustment over time.
SLEEP AND REGULATION
Sleep concerns are often intertwined with stress, emotional intensity, trauma or hormonal changes. Therapy supports exploring the emotional, cognitive and behavioural factors that affect rest, alongside mind-body approaches for regulation.
Sessions are available via Telehealth across Australia, or in person at The Pines Sanctuary in Martinsville NSW, conveniently located for clients from Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, the Central Coast and the Hunter Valley.
If any of these areas resonate with you, you are welcome to book an appointment using the online booking link, or get in touch via the contact page if you have any questions.