About
About Michelle
My personal and political identities are:
I am a Chinese-Australian, Queer, neurodivergent, and mostly able-bodied cisgender woman. I regularly see my own therapist and believe every therapist should.
Professionally, I am a social worker, relationship counsellor, individual psychotherapist, a family therapist, and a clinical supervisor.
My qualifications include a Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) and Graduate Diploma of Relationship Counselling, but more importantly I am a person who cares about empowering you instead of forcing you into a mainstream definition of success.
About Michelle
Professional training and experience:
Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) and Graduate Diploma of Relationship Counselling. Experience as a social worker, counsellor, and a clinical supervisor.
I identify as an anti-oppressive practice social worker, counsellor, reflective & relational supervisor, and facilitator for change.
I’ve worked mainly in NGOs providing counselling and supervision/training, and in tertiary education teaching social work and counselling subjects.
I’ve also recently joined a co-operative for influencing bigger systems change (check out Campfire Co-Op, Percolab), and trying out how research fits or doesn’t for me.
As a human being:
I enjoy food and practice intuitive eating as part of healing my relationship with food and my body image. My favourite cuisine is Japanese.
I like cold temperatures (21-23C is my preferred temp).
My safe haven is lying down on my sofa with at least one of my three cats cuddled up while reading fanfiction or watching youtube on my phone.
I have 3 cats I am obsessed with – Twinkie is my senior tortie queen, Jacinda is my shy tuxedo sweetie, Minnie my chaos gremlin brown tabby.
I like watching anime, listening to audiobooks, happy endings in my fiction, soft drinks (even though it gives me the burps), and Youtube videos since Tiktok scares me.
Personal perspective, understanding and lived experience:
I’m a second generation Chinese-Australian settler, Queer, neurodivergent, and mostly able-bodied fat cisgender woman that lives with chronic pain/health conditions.
I bring wisdom and empathy from my lived experiences of unwell mental health, use medication for my mental health, poverty and homelessness, family violence, racial violence, structural oppression, and being failed by services.
I recognise my privilege and reflect on being sighted and hearing, middle class, Australian citizenship, having tertiary education, stable private housing, food security, mostly able-bodied, and consistent access to the internet.
I regularly see my own therapist and believe every therapist should.
Personal values: Compassion, integrity, transparency, growth, courage, care.
Anti-perfectionism and accountability: I acknowledge that I get things wrong sometimes, taking accountability when I do and actively trying to identify and eliminate oppression and injustice on both a personal and systemic level.
Who I work with:
I often work with people who are marginalised; people who experience oppression under neoliberalism, capitalism and colonialism; and people who don’t buy into mainstream ideas of success/productivity.
This often includes:
- People of colour
- People from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds
- LGBTIQA+ folk
- Neurodivergent folk
- Sex workers
- Victim-survivors
- People who have relational trauma
- People who have caused harm
- People who don’t buy into mainstream ideas of work
As well as people in all kinds of relationships including:
- Friendships
- Professional relationships
- Queer/LGBTQI2A+ relationships
- Polyamorous, non-monogamous and/or multipartnered polycules
- Adult children and their parents (a particular passion of mine)
Therapeutic approaches and frameworks
I work with people on a human to human level and believe that therapy is about the relationship between us, not applying a specific process or model.
In our work together I will draw on a range of techniques, approaches and frameworks including:
- Narrative Therapy
- Acceptance Commitment Therapy
- Response-Based Practice
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Trauma-Informed
- Attachment Lens
- Person-Centered & Strengths-Based
- Experiential
- Psychodynamic Psychotherapy
- Systemic and Anti-Oppressive / Justice-Orientated
- Peer work principles i.e. Intentional Peer Work
- (Which includes but is not limited to Health At Every Size / HAES framework, body neutrality, neurodivergent affirming, gender affirming, Intersectional Feminist, transformative justice / restorative justice / community accountability)
I also use elements of parts therapy such as Schema, Internal Family Systems, DBT, EMDR, and others but they are not my main frameworks.
In addition when relationship counselling:
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy
- Post-Milan
- Feminist
- Structural
- Systematic
- Solution-Focused
- Attachment based therapies
- Bowen
- Gottman
PACT
I can work with both adult child/ren with their older parents, and adult siblings, and adult extended family including interstate and international.
