About Jake

Hi, my name is Jake.

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Hopefully in this little bio section I can give you a sense of who I am and help you figure out whether sitting or walking together might feel right.

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Professionally, I am a PACFA registered counsellor. I work in an integrative way, which is a bit of a buzzword, but it just means I draw from different approaches and bring it back to the therapeutic relationship. When I first studied, I was taught about neutrality, about maintaining the role of the professional. Over time, both personally and professionally, I have had to do some unlearning. It began to feel inauthentic to sit with another person and pretend I didn't see the wider forces shaping their life, like the stress of structural oppression and the constant measuring of ourselves against ideas of normal.

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Maybe this was influenced by growing up playing punk music, being neurodivergent or queer. All experiences that shaped who I am. But part of this shift was also shaped by my work in not-for-profit disability organisations, where I advocated for bodily autonomy and the sexual rights of people living with disability. Being close to those conversations about power and who gets to define what is healthy really had an eye opening effect on me. It strengthened my resistance to the idea that therapy should help people adapt to systems that harm them.

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First Nations cultures have known the value of relationship, land and community for thousands of years. I see and respect that knowledge as I continually try to decolonise my practice. Which to me feels like a continual steady process of questioning what I have been taught and also doing my absolute best to notice where colonial and patriarchal values may have an influence on my therapeutic practice. Therapy doesn't exist outside culture. It is influenced by histories of power, by ideas about productivity and normality, by assumptions about what healing should look like and how quickly it should happen. I try really hard to resist this influence by slowing the work down, reconnecting with nature and remembering that relationship is what sustains change.

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It might be obvious from my bio that I am passionate about social justice, this passion is present in my practice, along with a playful  curiosity, humour, warmth and often a sprinkling of awkwardness. Authenticity matters to me, because trust grows when we meet each other honestly.

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Enough about me… what about you?

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People come to see me carrying all kinds of life experiences and stories. Here are just a few examples: surviving trauma, families that shaped us in complicated ways, the weight of capitalism, grief, sexuality, gender journeys, autism, ADHD, sudden ruptures that change the direction of a life overnight.

 

Alongside these experiences are the human responses that grow around them: anxiety, depression, disconnection and isolation, self-criticism, substance use, self-harm, thoughts of not wanting to be here, masking to stay safe. In session we can get curious about these patterns, meet them with compassion and figure out what actually feels right for you now.