Patterns and context
We look at what happens before a problem, what follows it, what it helps you avoid, what it costs, and whether the same arrangement appears elsewhere in your life.
Counselling in Curtin, Canberra & online
Counselling for adults who are coping, but carrying too much.
You may know exactly what you want help with. You may simply know that the way you have been managing is becoming harder to sustain. I offer individual and couples counselling from my rooms in Curtin and via Zoom.
The person before the problem
People are easier to understand when we take their context seriously. Behaviour usually has a history and a function.
Individual counselling
People rarely arrive with one neat problem.
Stress affects relationships. Caring for somebody else affects work. Anxiety creates avoidance. Addiction can become a way of managing shame, boredom or distress. Grief can alter identity as much as mood.
Many people who come to see me are still functioning outwardly. They are working, caring for other people, keeping appointments and doing what needs to be done. Privately, they may be overwhelmed, angry, emotionally exhausted, disconnected or tired of holding everything together.
You do not need to decide which category you belong in before you get in touch.
- Burnout, workplace pressure and over-responsibility
- Anxiety, avoidance, self-doubt and feeling stuck
- Grief, ageing, identity and life transitions
- Carer and parenting strain, including disability-family pressures
- Anger, loneliness and men new to counselling
- Addiction, recovery and maintaining change
Couples counselling
Without turning the room into a courtroom.
Couples often arrive with two competing accounts of what is wrong. Each account may contain something true. My job is not to decide who is the reasonable one and who is the problem. It is to understand what happens between you: the sequence, what each person is protecting, and why attempts to solve the problem can end up recreating it.
We can look at responsibility without turning responsibility into prosecution. That does not mean pretending every account is equally accurate or that every behaviour is acceptable.
I work with repeated conflict, withdrawal, resentment, trust, intimacy, parenting strain and difficult decisions about the relationship. Couples can attend in Curtin or by Zoom, including from separate locations where appropriate.
Ask about couples counsellingHow I work
The relationship comes first.
There are useful theories and techniques in counselling, but they are not much use if the person in the room does not feel heard or cannot be honest. I want clients to be able to disagree with me, tell me when I have misunderstood something, or say when the work is not helping.
That also means I will not agree with everything automatically. Being taken seriously is different from being told that every interpretation is correct.
Some people come for focused work over a shorter period. Others want time to understand longstanding patterns. We can review what is helping and whether continuing makes sense as we go. Counselling becomes useless when it turns into another form of procrastination.
The ideas I draw on
My work is relational and psychodynamic, informed by attachment and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. The client should not have to fit the modality.
What sessions are like
Sessions are conversational. I listen, ask questions, test my understanding and sometimes offer an interpretation or practical suggestion. Silence, humour and disagreement are allowed.
About Matthew
The person matters before the problem does.
My background is in education, disability, neurodivergence, behaviour support, family support and addiction. In those settings, behaviour was often the first thing other people noticed. It could also become the whole story very quickly: difficult, avoidant, angry, unmotivated, demanding, withdrawn.
Those descriptions may contain something true, but they rarely explain very much. Behaviour may be trying to secure something, avoid something, protect something, or repeat a way of surviving that once made good sense. Understanding that does not mean excusing behaviour that is harmful. It means beginning with a more useful question than “What is wrong with this person?”
I hold a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, a Graduate Diploma in Education and a Diploma of Counselling. I am an Australian Counselling Association member (20168), undertake regular professional supervision, and continue professional development across psychodynamic, attachment and ACT-informed practice.
I work with adults and couples. If your needs sit outside my scope—or would be better served by medical, psychiatric, crisis or specialist care—I will say so plainly.
Fees & booking
Individual $120. Couples $140.
No GP referral or Mental Health Care Plan is required. Sessions are privately billed and do not attract a Medicare rebate.
Individual counselling
$12050 minutes · Curtin or ZoomCouples counselling
$14050 minutes · Curtin or ZoomInitial phone consultation
Free15 minutes · no obligationFace-to-face in Curtin
Wednesday, 7am–7pm
Zoom before 9am
Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
Payment
Due on the day of the appointment. Card-on-file is not mandatory.
Cancellation and rescheduling
Please give at least 48 hours’ notice where possible. Late cancellations or missed appointments may be charged at the full session fee; genuine emergencies may be considered at my discretion.
Contact
Start with a conversation.
You do not need to explain everything in the first message. A sentence or two about what has brought you to counselling is enough. Phone is the quickest way to arrange the free consultation. Email is equally welcome if you would rather write first.
Coming to Curtin
Dantien Integrative Health Practices
13 Theodore StreetCurtin ACT 2605
There is street parking and step-free access by ramp. Signs direct you to the waiting area; toilets are available. I will come to meet you.
Open in Google Maps ↗Urgent support
Counselling the Capital is not a crisis service. If you or somebody else is in immediate danger, call 000 or attend the nearest Emergency Department. You can also call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467, or Access Mental Health ACT on 1800 629 354.