Hi,I’m Kate
Hello!I’m a clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic psychotherapist based in Brisbane, Australia. I offer psychotherapy, supervision, and mentorship that honour the complexity of being human in amidst the increasing professional, regulatory and existential dilemmas of our time.
My work is primarily influenced by psychoanalysis, but I am also interested in spiritual and psychological systems that focus on supporting individuals to uncover their particular gifts and unfold a unique personal myth. While healing our wounds is essential to the pursuit of a joyful and fulfilling life, I have come to see it as a precursor to the greater task of initiation into who we really are. In a culture that is largely void of initiatory rites, we are almost all of us left to figure out this process for ourselves, and it is this challenge that I am especially passionate about supporting my patients and supervisees to undertake. In this area, I am influenced by the work of Bill Plotkin, as well as a lineage of thinkers within and beyond psychology and psychoanalysis, including Carl Jung, David Whyte, Hyman Spotnitz, and Anodea Judith.
training & qualifications
I hold registration as a clinical psychologist with AHPRA, and am also a Board-approved Supervisor. I graduated from the Queensland University of Technology with a Masters of Clinical Psychology with Distinction. I completed my Masters thesis on the comparison of psychoanalytic and metacognitive narrative therapies in the treatment of psychosis. I also have a Bachelor of Psychological Science (Hons Class I) from the University of Queensland. My honours thesis investigated the association between loneliness, alexithymia and sub-threshold autism traits in men.
Outside of clinical psychology, I have undertaken ongoing training in a variety of psychoanalytic frameworks including modern psychoanalysis, self psychology and Masterson’s core sensitivities attachment model. My self-study interests vary over time, but include spirituality and mysticism, tarot, poetry, shamanism, alchemy, human design, love, and desire. I have completed a celebrated internship in physical theatre with local theatre company Zen Zen Zo, and am also a qualified yoga teacher.
Projects
I enjoy publishing The Psychoalchemist, a regular newsletter via Substack about psychology, psychoanalysis, and spirituality.
I am passionate about design and therapeutic spaces, and I offer tenancies to fellow psychologists and psychotherapists in my therapy suite at Ballow Chambers in the Brisbane CBD. I also offer consultation to other therapists and business owners who want help furnishing or fitting out their own work spaces.
Following the completion of my Masters thesis, I co-authored the paper Transference and countertransference in the recovery of self in metacognitively-orientated therapies for psychosis, published by Routledge in The Recovery of the Self in Psychosis: Contributions from Metacognitive and Mentalization Based Oriented Psychotherapy (2021) edited by Ilanit Hasson-Ohayon and Paul H. Lysaker.
I enjoy occasional speaking engagements, especially relating to how psychoanalytic and spiritual ideas can be applied to real life and business. I co-organised the inaugural Brisbane Psychoanalytic Congress in 2025, and presented a paper at the conference entitled Cultivating Mystery Tolerance in Psychoanalytic Practice. I have been a speaker at the Psychoanalytically Oriented Psychoanalytic Interest Group (POPIG) of the APS, the PreSales Collective, and a number of podcasts. I speak on topics from the psychology of sales, to the integration of psychoanalytic and spiritual ideas in clinical work.