The work is not about what happened. It is about who you had to become in response to it.
Relational psychotherapy for people whose difficulty lives less in what they think and more in how they find themselves living, relating, and repeating.
Fifty minutes. We begin where you arrive.
There is no intake process or structured checklist to move through before we begin. We start with what is present.
Some people arrive with something clear: something that happened, something they are struggling with, something they have been carrying. Others arrive with less certainty. Both are workable starting points.
The work is often slower than people expect. I do not tend to move quickly toward solutions or away from discomfort. When something important emerges, I usually stay with it.
At times I may name something I notice happening between us. Not as an explanation, but as something becoming visible. Often what emerges there is more useful than moving past it.
There are sessions where very little seems to happen. It is not unusual for those to be the ones where something shifts.
You do not need to arrive with clarity or a way of explaining yourself. You only need to arrive. The rest becomes clearer from there.
Some work is short term. Some continues over time.
What tends to be present when people arrive
People who come here are often already thoughtful about themselves.
Many have spent years trying to understand why certain difficulties persist. They can identify patterns, trace them back to their origins, and describe them with considerable clarity. What is often less clear is why understanding has not led to the change they expected.
People often describe:
- understanding themselves without that understanding leading to change
- seeing patterns clearly yet continuing to find themselves inside them
- shaping themselves in relation to others before anything has been said
- difficulty knowing what is wanted until after a moment has passed
- a sense that feeling something and being able to say it do not always arrive together
- relationships that repeat a familiar shape despite different people and circumstances
- functioning effectively on the outside while carrying a hidden internal cost
- knowing something deeply without yet being able to live it
Anxiety, depression, burnout, relationship difficulties, grief, and self-criticism are some of the ways people describe what brings them here.
While these experiences can be deeply painful, they are often understood here not simply as problems to eliminate, but as meaningful responses that have developed within a particular life.
Some arrive because a particular event, relationship, loss, or transition has made these patterns harder to ignore.
Others arrive with a quieter sense that something in the way they are living no longer fits, even if they cannot yet explain why.
People come from many different backgrounds. What they tend to share is not a diagnosis or set of symptoms, but a growing sense that the life they are living has become organised around adaptations that once made sense and may no longer be necessary.
BPD · NPD · Schizoid presentations · Histrionic presentations · Complex trauma / CPTSD · Attachment-related difficulties · Dissociative experiences · Long-standing anxiety or depression · OCD traits · Bipolar disorder · Eating-related difficulties · Self-harm · Identity and self-experience · Performance-based distress · High-functioning overwhelm · LGBTQ+ affirming work · Kink-aware practice · Sex work and adult industry · Healthcare workers
How I think about therapy
What feels familiar in life often becomes familiar here as well.
The tendency to hold back. To anticipate. To explain rather than feel. To move toward someone or away from them.
Not because therapy creates these patterns, but because relationships tend to bring them with us.
What is difficult to recognise alone can sometimes become easier to see in the presence of another person. Not simply because it is talked about, but because it is experienced.
Over time, ways of relating that once felt automatic can become more visible. The responses that seemed inevitable begin to feel less fixed. New possibilities emerge where there once appeared to be only repetition.
The relationship itself becomes part of the work. Not as something analysed from a distance, but as something lived and experienced together.
Change rarely comes from advice alone. More often it emerges through discovering that another way of being with oneself, and with another person, can actually be experienced.
Where this practice has particular depth
Three areas where this work tends to go further than most.
What becomes possible
It is difficult to say in advance what will change.
What often shifts is not a symptom in the first instance, but the necessity to remain so carefully organised around it.
The ways of being that once felt automatic become more visible. Choices appear where there previously seemed to be only reactions.
Some people find themselves speaking more directly. Others discover feelings that had long been organised through thinking, achievement, humour, or withdrawal.
Relationships can begin to feel less repetitive. Less governed by anticipation.
Often the change is recognised afterwards, in moments that would once have unfolded differently.
How to begin
Make contact
You can book directly through the online booking system, or send a message if you would prefer to make contact first. No referral required. Jackson responds to every enquiry personally.
First session
Not an intake. We dive straight into the present: what is happening for you right now, what you are hoping for, and what it would mean for things to be different. Relevant history finds its way in when it needs to. By the end, we will both have a clearer sense of whether this work is the right fit.
The work
Sessions are 50 minutes, weekly to begin with. The pace is yours. Some people work here for months, others considerably longer. Nothing is determined before we have spoken.
Full fee $234. Medicare rebate $149.05 with a valid Mental Health Care Plan from your GP. No referral required to book. No bulk billing.
Concession arrangements considered case by case. Get in touch to discuss.
The Australian Psychological Society's recommended rate is $318. Jackson's fee reflects a considered position about access to depth-oriented care.
Book a session →This practice is not currently accepting referrals under NDIS, WorkCover, DVA, or for people involved in active legal proceedings.
You do not have to arrive with clarity about what is wrong.
Most people do not. A first session is a commitment to one conversation: nothing more.
Book a session →Frequently asked
No. You can book directly. A Mental Health Care Plan from your GP reduces your out-of-pocket cost significantly through Medicare rebates: but it is not required to begin.
CBT works with thoughts and behaviours. This work goes deeper: the emotional and relational architecture underneath, including what you cannot yet put into words. The relationship between therapist and client is the primary vehicle for change, not a set of techniques applied to a problem.
That depends on what you are carrying and what you are trying to reach. Some people work here for months: a focused period with a clear enough aim and real movement within it. Others work for considerably longer, building something that takes time to become possible. The work is not linear in either case.
The first session is a genuine conversation about what makes sense for you. Nothing is predetermined before we have spoken.
Yes. This is depth work: slow, relational, and often uncomfortable before it is clarifying. If you are looking for a structured skills program or time-limited CBT, this is probably not the right fit. It tends to suit people for whom those approaches have not reached what is underneath.
Yes. Relational psychodynamic therapy is available via telehealth to clients throughout Australia. The therapeutic relationship develops fully in the online context: the relational dimension of the work is not diminished by the format.
Sessions are $85 out of pocket with a valid Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, or $234 without. No bulk billing.
This is one of the most common things people arrive with. Previous therapy, particularly shorter-term or skills-based approaches, often provides real benefit without reaching what is underneath. If you have insight into your patterns without being able to move them, relational psychodynamic therapy may offer what previous work could not.
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