Catherine is a clinical psychologist who has been working in private practice settings since late 2016. Catherine values supporting her clients to achieve their goals and to support them in living a rich, full, and meaningful life regardless of what stressors life throws at them.  While Catherine is a strong believer of the importance of early intervention, she has a particular passion for supporting individuals who missed these opportunities earlier in life.  Catherine believes that it is never too late for people to make meaningful changes and to build a better life.  She endeavours to always be genuine and empathic in her approach to clients and hopes to create a space where clients feel safe to share their stories.  Catherine emphasises the importance of utilising evidence based therapeutic approaches in a flexible manner tailored to the client’s specific needs and lifestyle.   

Catherine has experience in working with clients across the lifespan with various mental health concerns in both individual and group settings.  During her Masters of Psychology (Clinical) she undertook external placements at Adult Community Mental Health Services and Salvation Army Bridge Program.  It was during these placements that Catherine developed a passion for working with clients who have experienced trauma and mental health difficulties associated with this.  Catherine has undertaken additional training in trauma focused therapies to assist her in supporting individuals to recover from trauma.  Catherine is able to offer cognitive processing therapy, trauma focussed cognitive behaviour therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy based approaches to trauma.         

Catherine is also passionate about supporting clients with anxiety related concerns and difficulties with perfectionism that may lead to avoidance of meaningful activities.  She thoroughly enjoys assisting clients to face their fears.  Catherine is also particularly interested in the psychology of body image and eating and enjoys working with clients with disordered eating patterns.  She works with adults experiencing eating disorders and likes to incorporate strategies from a range of different therapeutic modalities including MANTRA, CBT-E, motivational interviewing, DBT, and ACT based approaches. 

Catherine is also particularly interested in working with neurodivergent individuals, particular Autistic and ADHD’er individuals.  She feels passionately about working from a neurodiversity affirmative framework that acknowledges both the strengths and differences/challenges associated with having a neurodivergent brain.  She strongly believes in the social model of disability, believing that disability for neurodivergent individuals is caused by living in a society that is not intuitively set up for their way of interacting, thinking, and behaving and that environmental adjustments and accommodations are necessary to reduce disability.  Being a neurodivergent individual in a society set up for neurotypical brains has a significant functional impact and contributes to the high rates of mental health concerns seen in neurodivergent individuals.  Catherine enjoys supporting neurodivergent clients to accept and celebrate the strengths associated with neurological difference and assist them to reduce masking their true selves.  She also acknowledges the challenges associated with being neurodivergent and enjoys supporting clients to be able to advocate to have their needs met in various contexts.           

In addition to therapeutic services, Catherine is also able to undertake psychometric assessments, including cognitive, academic, and memory assessments.  She is able to complete diagnostic assessments for neurodivergence and particularly enjoys undertaking assessments for specific learning disorders, ADHD, Autism, and giftedness.  Catherine aims to prepare assessment reports that help clients in understanding their personal strengths and weaknesses and identify appropriate supports and accommodations in contexts such as home and school/work.  She can complete reports to support application to the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) if applicable.    

Catherine is eligible to provide non-directive pregnancy support counselling under Medicare. 

Catherine is passionate about supporting the development of the profession. In her past role as committee member and Treasurer of the Australian Psychological Society (APS) Tasmania Branch Catherine was able to support professional development and networking opportunities within the local psychology community. Catherine is eager to see the professional development and supervision services provided by HMC expand over coming years and has started doing presentations on her areas of passionate interest to other health professionals and psychologists. She hopes to provide quality, evidence based professional development opportunities both to the local health professional community and more broadly. Catherine is a Board Approved Supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia and is able to provide supervision for provisional psychologists undertaking the 4+2 and 5+1 pathway and higher degree students working in addition to placement. She is also able to be a principal supervisor for clinical psychology registrars. Catherine is eager to support psychologists who are new to the profession in their development.

You can find out more about Catherine’s approach to supervision here.