Autism Therapy with a Brisbane Psychologist.
Focused psychological therapies, using EMDR, DBT, Schema Therapy and somatic approaches.
I'm a Brisbane-based psychologist in Stafford working with autistic adults and teens (12+). Many of my clients are late-diagnosed or self-identifying. I don’t conduct assessments — therapy only.
Book OnlineAutism in adults.
A lot of the autistic adults I work with are intellectualisers — people who feel safest in analysis, who have spent years getting language and frameworks around their own experience because language and frameworks are how things become navigable. The interests are often narrow and deep: a small number of topics held with very thorough understanding, the kind of expertise that quietly surprises people who hadn’t realised how much careful reading had been happening underneath.
Many arrive in therapy thinking what they need help with is burnout — and they’re often right that it’s burnout, but it tends to be the specific kind that comes from years of masking in environments that weren’t built for their nervous system, rather than the more general work-stress burnout the word usually points at. For some, adding an autism lens to the picture fills in patterns that the depression frame on its own didn’t account for.
Women are particularly often late-diagnosed or self-diagnosed — frequently after a child or a sibling’s diagnosis re-frames their own history. The cost of decades of internalising distress can show up physically as well as emotionally: chronic health conditions, autonomic dysregulation, gut and immune patterns that have been treated as separate problems for a long time. I work collaboratively with GPs, physiotherapists, and occupational therapists where it’s relevant to a client’s care.
High masking and the hidden cost of autism in adults.
The phrase high functioning gets used a lot in autism spaces. It’s usually more accurate to say high masking — the conscious or unconscious effort of suppressing natural responses to fit into environments designed for someone else’s nervous system. Rehearsing conversations, performing eye contact, reading social cues by analysis rather than instinct, suppressing stim behaviours, holding the body still when it wants to move. The cost lands afterwards: weekends spent in recovery, careers that pay for themselves with chronic exhaustion, relationships where a partner gradually becomes a de facto unpaid carer.
A common frustration in therapy: I know what I’m supposed to do, but in the moment I don’t do it. Or: I can’t tell what I’m feeling until it’s already too big. Research suggests around half of autistic adults meet criteria for alexithymia — difficulty identifying and describing one’s own emotions — and a substantial proportion report interoceptive confusion, where the body’s internal signals don’t reach the cortex clearly until they’re extreme. Pairing cognitive strategies with body-based work tends to be more useful here than relying on the strategies alone.
If you’re reading this on behalf of someone you live with — a partner, a child, a sibling — you may be recognising the pattern right now.
Practical strategies for autism spectrum conditions
Most ND clients are already deeply insightful — autistic clients especially. They’ve spent years analysing themselves. They’ve read the books, found the frameworks, sometimes run their own diagnostic patterns past three different friends.
Early sessions tend to focus on stabilising the day-to-day, with a particular emphasis on sensory accommodations — what your nervous system actually needs to feel less assaulted by an ordinary Tuesday, and how to negotiate for it at work, at home, and in your own week without the masking effort taking back over. This is where I lean on DBT skills — distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness — and somatic and nervous-system-based work, with a deliberate focus on bridging the alexithymia and interoception gap so that body-based information becomes accessible rather than a confusing background hum. Once those foundations are steadier, we move into the deeper work — Schema Therapy for long-standing relational patterns and the inner critic, and EMDR (including ND-informed adaptations and EMDR 2.0 where appropriate) for the cumulative trauma of years of sensory overwhelm and being slightly out of sync with the world.
EMDR
Neurodivergent-informed EMDR for the cumulative trauma of years of sensory overwhelm and rejection that functions like trauma even when it doesn't look like it.
Read more →Schema Therapy
For long-standing relational patterns and the inner critic that's been running at full volume since primary school.
Read more →DBT
Distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness — the practical foundations that come first.
Read more →Autism and ADHD together (AuDHD).
Research suggests around a third of autistic people also meet criteria for ADHD, with studies finding rates between 25% and 65%. The combination — sometimes called AuDHD — often produces a particular set of internal contradictions: wanting routine and getting bored of it, craving novelty and being overwhelmed by it, deep focus and extreme distractibility in the same hour.
Autism assessments in Brisbane — where to go.
I do not offer autism assessments. A formal autism diagnosis in Australia is typically made by a psychiatrist or a psychologist who conducts adult autism assessments. Your usual GP is the right starting point — they can refer you to an assessing clinician.
What I offer is therapy — for adults and teens who have been diagnosed, are in the process of being assessed, or strongly suspect autism and want to start working on the patterns now while they figure out the assessment side. Therapy and assessment are different services; some people benefit from both running in parallel.
Already have an assessing clinician or psychiatrist? I work collaboratively alongside psychiatry, GP care, OTs and other clinicians involved in your treatment, with your consent.
Who this work suits.
Some honest framing about whether this is the right fit. If you’re not sure, your GP can help you decide.
If you're in active suicidal crisis or need acute crisis stabilisation, those situations are better held by services with more resources. In Queensland: Lifeline 13 11 14 (24/7), MH CALL 1300 642 255, or 000 in an emergency.
- You can attend sessions consistently and are looking for ongoing therapy rather than a one-off session.
- You seek practical, ND-affirming therapy — not an assessment or crisis-only support.
- You’re an adult or a parent of a teen (12+), able to attend in person at the Stafford clinic in Brisbane, or via Telehealth.
- You strongly suspect autism or have been diagnosed, or are in the process of being assessed for autism.
Therapy for autistic teens 12+.
When the school day has been doing the masking for them.
I work with autistic teens from age 12. Many of the adolescents I see, especially girls, have been missed by the school system for years — not because the autism wasn’t there, but because the masking has been doing its job too well. They look fine in class. They get the grades. They have a few friends. What people don’t see is the cost: the meltdown at home that doesn’t happen at school, the sensory exhaustion that takes the whole weekend to recover from, the social rehearsal that goes into looking effortless during lunch.
Sessions with teens follow the same practical-first philosophy as the adult work, tailored to where the school year actually sits: sensory accommodation strategies for a classroom that wasn’t designed for them; emotional regulation; recognising the early signals of overwhelm before they become a Friday-afternoon collapse; navigating the particular friendship and family dynamics that show up around adolescence; and the gradual, careful building of self-knowledge — including the choice about whether and how to share that self-knowledge with the world.
Parents are involved at the consent and context level, and welcome in occasional sessions where it serves the work — but the therapy itself is the teen’s space.
Autism therapy in Brisbane - FAQ
Do you do autism assessments or diagnose autism?
I haven’t been formally diagnosed yet — can I still book?
Can autism therapy sessions be claimed under Medicare?
How long are sessions, and how often?
Do you offer Telehealth autism therapy?
What if both autism and ADHD apply to me?
Brisbane Psychology for Autism in Stafford
Organic Psychology
Soul Shine Collective
239 Stafford Rd
Stafford QLD 4053
Tel: (07) 3521 8590
The consulting room is sensory-considered by default: no overhead lighting, no smelly candles, no perfume. Sensory accommodations are something we talk about explicitly in the early weeks of therapy.
A short drive from Stafford Heights, Kedron, Everton Park, Gordon Park, Grange, Alderley, Chermside, Nundah, Clayfield. Street parking available.
Evening sessions: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Telehealth: Mondays.
