Therapy where the relationship is itself the work.
Relational psychodynamic psychotherapy and Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for adults whose difficulty lives in character and relationship. In-person in Miami, Gold Coast. Telehealth available Australia-wide.
In relational therapy, the relationship is not where the work takes place.
It is what the work is.
Some people arrive with complete insight into their patterns. They can describe the shape of the difficulty with precision: the same thing happening in different relationships, the moments where closeness produces anxiety, the sense of something essential missing from how they exist. The understanding is genuine. What has not moved is the feeling underneath. That gap is where relational therapy begins.
In relational psychodynamic therapy, what happens between therapist and client in the room is the primary material. Not as a backdrop to techniques applied elsewhere. As the site of change itself. What you reach for, what you pull away from, how you hold yourself when something matters: these patterns show up in the therapeutic relationship, and working with them directly is how something actually shifts.
This is different from approaches that treat the relationship as supportive infrastructure for skill-building or cognitive restructuring. Here, the emotional texture of what happens between two people is the data. I pay close attention to it: what is being communicated beneath the words, what shifts when something is named, what the room feels like when a particular topic arrives.
Many people who come to relational therapy have tried other approaches that provided real benefit without reaching what is underneath. If you have insight into your patterns without being able to move them, this is often the territory that was missed. On insight without relief →
Transference-Focused Psychotherapy (TFP)
TFP is an evidence-based, structured form of psychodynamic therapy developed from object relations theory, originally designed for personality disorder presentations and used widely with anyone whose difficulty lives in character and relationship. It works directly with what happens between therapist and client in real time. I pay close attention to the emotional texture of our interactions, to what is communicated beneath the words, to what is being enacted rather than spoken. The transference: your experience of me, and what that experience reveals about your internal world, becomes the primary vehicle for understanding and change. Jackson Hill is one of very few practitioners on the Gold Coast offering TFP.
What TFP does that CBT does not reach → TFP as a dedicated treatment approach →A new now.
Most of what shapes how we move through relationships was formed in relationship, often before we had language for it. The templates that organise how we expect to be received, what we reach for, what we pull away from: these were not formed through reasoning. They will not change through reasoning alone.
What changes is not insight about how the pattern works. What changes is what happens in the room. Over time, something that has only ever been described becomes something that is experienced differently.
The relationship between therapist and patient is where that happens first. It is not a rehearsal for the rest of life. It is the rest of life, condensed and made visible.
Jackson Hill
MPsych Clinical · Griffith University 2018AHPRA Registered · Provider No. 5666808K
Member, Australian Psychological Society
I am a Clinical Psychologist based in Miami, Gold Coast. My work is relational and psychodynamic. I trained in TFP and work within a broader relational psychodynamic frame that treats what happens between us as the primary vehicle for change, not the context in which techniques are applied.
My clinical background is unusually broad: Veterans Affairs, the Gold Coast Academy of Sport, high-intensity trauma, brain injury rehabilitation, acute inpatient settings. I keep a small caseload and work under ongoing supervision, not because it is required, but because this level of work demands it.
Questions people usually arrive with.
Relational therapy treats the therapeutic relationship itself as the primary vehicle for change. It suits adults whose difficulty lives in character and relationship rather than in discrete symptoms: people who understand their patterns but cannot move them, who have tried other approaches without reaching what is underneath, or whose presenting difficulty is fundamentally relational in nature.
TFP is a structured, evidence-based psychodynamic approach developed specifically for character-level difficulties. Unlike approaches that address thoughts and behaviours directly, TFP works with the relational patterns that generate them. The primary focus is the emotional experience that emerges between therapist and client in real time, and what that experience reveals about the internal world. Jackson Hill is one of very few practitioners on the Gold Coast trained in TFP.
CBT identifies and changes thought patterns and behaviours. Relational therapy works with the deeper emotional and relational architecture that generates those patterns: the experiences and templates formed early in life, in relationship, that continue to organise how someone moves through the world. Many people who have found CBT genuinely helpful find that relational work reaches something CBT could not.
This is long-term work. Most people commit to at least a year; many continue considerably longer. The work is non-linear: there are periods of significant movement and periods of consolidation. What it offers is not rapid symptom reduction but durable change at the level of who a person is. This is discussed openly from the first session.
Yes. With a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, Medicare rebates of $145 apply. Sessions are $225 and your out-of-pocket cost with a valid plan is $80 per session. No referral is required to book; the MHCP is optional but recommended to reduce your cost.
No referral required to book.
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.
Per 50-minute session
Out of pocket · $145 Medicare rebate
Sessions in-person in Miami, Gold Coast · Suite 11, 2098 Gold Coast Highway · Telehealth available Australia-wide · Walk-and-talk sessions available locally
Not an intake.
The first session is a genuine conversation: 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.
Suite 11, 2098 Gold Coast Highway, Miami QLD 4220
jackson@jacksonhillpsychology.com.au · 0401 065 290
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 About the work →/2. ICONS/THERAPIST CHAIR.png){kind=logo}
How would you like to connect?
Suite 11, 2098 Gold Coast Highway, Miami · Confidential
I look forward to hearing from you.
Whether you have a question, want to know if this is the right fit, or are ready to begin, I respond personally to every message.