How online counselling actually works.
From your couch. With the baby in your arms if you want. No drive, no waiting room, no childcare, no pretending to be fine. The format I've been doing for years through Red Nose, and the format that turns out to suit motherhood almost perfectly.
Fifty minutes, from where you are.
You get a Google Meet link in the calendar invitation when you book. Five minutes before our time, you click it. We say hi. We talk for fifty minutes. We figure out a rhythm together — who starts, how we end, what we want to hold for next time.
You can be on a laptop at the kitchen table, on your phone in the car between school pickup and gymnastics, on a tablet propped up on the bed while the baby sleeps on you. You can have the camera on or off — your choice. You can cry, or not. You can keep your tea in the frame.
I'm at my desk in a private room. I have notes in front of me. The session ends, we book the next one, and you go straight back to your life — no commute home with red eyes.
What you lose vs. what you gain.
The honest version: you do lose something not being in the same room. The co-regulation that happens between two nervous systems in physical space is real, and it doesn't translate perfectly through a screen. I won't pretend otherwise.
What you gain: not finding childcare. Not driving across town. Not sitting in a waiting room. Not getting in the car with red eyes after a hard session. Not having to hold yourself together in a corridor. Not feeling like you have to "look okay" enough for public.
For most of the women I see, the trade is heavily worth it. Especially in the perinatal period — when leaving the house with a newborn is a logistical event, and when "looking okay" in public is the very performance that's been wearing you out.
Online isn't a workaround for me.
A lot of my work with Red Nose — Australia's leading bereavement support service for stillbirth, miscarriage, and infant loss — has been online. Some of the most important conversations I've sat in have happened over a screen, with someone in their car, or their bed, or a hospital cafeteria. The work doesn't suffer for the format. The format makes the work possible.
That's why this practice runs online by choice, not by compromise. It's how I learned to hold space at all.
- Sessions
- 50 minutes, online via Google Meet.
- Cost
- $150 AUD, GST-free under ATO health service guidelines.
- Free intro
- A 15-minute call before booking, on me.
- Cadence
- Most clients start weekly, then ease to fortnightly.
- Hours
- Mondays and Tuesdays, 9am – 5pm AEST.
- Availability
- Online across Australia. Not currently taking international clients.
- Medicare
- Counsellors aren't covered by Medicare. Some private health insurers (Bupa, Medibank, HCF) offer rebates under extras cover.
- Qualifications
- ACA Registered Counsellor (Member #2243) · Diploma of Counselling (AIPC) · Master of Counselling (in progress) · Red Nose trained.
"Online counsellor near me" still gets searched. Honestly — if you're anywhere in Australia, I'm near you. The country is the room.
Things people ask about online sessions.
Is online counselling as good as in-person?
Honestly, yes. Research has been catching up on this for years now and the consistent finding is that online therapy is as effective as face-to-face for the kinds of work I do — the conversational, relational, slowly-figuring-it-out work. There are some kinds of clinical work where in-person makes a meaningful difference, but counselling for the territory I sit in isn't one of them. What you lose by not being in the same room is much less than what you gain by not having to leave the house.
What do I actually need to set up?
A device with a camera (laptop, phone, tablet — they all work). A reasonably steady internet connection. A private-enough room — somewhere a partner or a family member won't walk in mid-sentence. Headphones if you're worried about being overheard. The Google Meet link arrives in your calendar invitation; there's nothing to install or download. You don't need a microphone, a webcam, or any equipment beyond what's already on your phone.
Can I have my baby on the call?
Yes. Frequently. Sleeping on you, feeding, on a play mat in the next room, fussing in your arms while you talk — all of it is fine. You don't have to apologise. You don't have to mute and pretend nothing happened. If you need to step away to pick the baby up, you step away. If you can't take a sentence to its end before the toddler interrupts, you take it in pieces. That's what online does that an office couldn't.
What if my connection drops?
It happens. We pick up where we left off, or I'll call you on the phone if Meet won't reconnect. We don't lose the session over a Wi-Fi blip. If your internet at home is genuinely unreliable, sometimes a session over voice-only works as well as video — sometimes better, especially if you find the camera makes you more self-conscious.
Is online private enough?
Google Meet is encrypted in transit. I take sessions from a private space, not a shared office. You'll need to find your own private corner — that's the harder side of the equation, especially in a small house with kids. Many of the women I see take sessions from their car in the driveway. Some from a bedroom with the door closed and a podcast playing in the lounge for cover. It's not perfect. It's also still better than driving across town with a baby in the back seat.
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From your couch is still therapy.
Sometimes more so. Start with a free fifteen-minute call — we'll see how it feels.
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