Simone O’Donnell

COUNSELLOR
PSYCHOTHERAPIST

BA(Psych & Socio); GradDip(Couns); MCouns; MACA

Simone is an accredited counsellor and trauma therapist. She has completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Counselling and a Master of Counselling, specialising in trauma. Simone is also an accredited meditation, mindfulness, and yoga teacher. Simone’s work embodies her passion for whole person healing, incorporating the mind and it’s thinking patterns, the body and the nervous system, as well as her client’s collective experience of belonging, meaning, and purpose.

Simone welcomes both adolescent and adult clients. Simone is particularly passionate about her role as an adolescent counsellor and takes pride in advocating for their needs as they navigate such a vulnerable stage of their development. Simone works with adolescent presentations of acute anxiety, emotional dysregulation, mood complaints, self-harming behaviours, risk, bullying, substance abuse, school refusal, and adjustment challenges. Simone also enjoys working with adults who present with anxiety, mood complaints, suicidality, chronic illness, grief and loss, attachment trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), complex PTSD, parenting challenges, relationship issues, poor confidence, substance-abuse, and treatment resistance.

Simone’s work is informed by the Polyvagal and Attachment Theory. Working somatically, she acknowledges the wisdom of the body, and how patterns form in response to traumatic experiences, all of which can be ‘unlearnt’ within a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship. Simone uses a person-centred treatment approach, viewing her clients as the expert of their own experiences. Simone seeks to work collaboratively with her clients and their tribe, drawing on a variety of treatment models including acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), emotion focused therapy (EFT), eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing therapy (EMDR), mindful yoga-based ACT (MYACT), and trauma-informed yoga therapy.

Simone holds her registration with the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) and is a professional member of the Australian Institute of Emotion Focused Therapy (AIEFT Inc.); The Blue Knot Foundation (National Centre of Excellence for Complex Trauma); and the Yoga Alliance. Please note that Simone offers her clients a reduced session fee as they are not eligible to claim a Medicare rebate.