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One-on-one psychodynamic therapy for adults, with a Melbourne-based registered psychologist. Sessions are held online, weekday mornings AEST.
Sometimes people come to therapy because they know exactly what is wrong. Perhaps you feel distressed by particular circumstances or by psychological symptoms you are experiencing. Others have a sense that something isn’t working, but struggle to put it into words. It might be a general sense of dissatisfaction, or feeling stuck, without fully understanding why.
Either way, you might have been carrying difficult feelings for a long time, finding yourself caught in familiar patterns, or noticing the same struggles emerging across different relationships, situations or stages of life. You may even wonder whether what you’re experiencing is “serious enough” to warrant seeking support.
Whatever your reasons for considering individual therapy, taking the time to explore what has brought you here can be worthwhile. Therapy offers a space to slow down and look at these experiences more closely, with someone whose job is to listen carefully and think alongside you.
People begin therapy for many different reasons. Some are responding to a mental health crisis, distressing symptoms, or a recent diagnosis. Others simply notice that something in life isn’t working and want to understand it better. Whether your difficulties feel obvious or difficult to define, seeking therapeutic support can be a worthwhile step.
People come to individual therapy when they are:
Any of these is reason enough.
Therapy can be useful for people managing a diagnosed mental health condition, and equally useful for people who simply want to understand themselves better and make sense of what keeps happening.
Individual counselling and talk therapy can look very different depending on who’s providing it. Some approaches are structured around worksheets, techniques, and homework between sessions. Alicia’s work is different in character.
Her sessions are guided by listening, curiosity, and reflection rather than advice or prescribed exercises. She works in a non-directive way, meaning she is less focused on telling you what to do and more interested in helping you understand your experiences. Together, you think about what you are experiencing, where it might come from, and what it may mean, supporting you to find your own way forward.
This approach creates space to explore experiences that may be difficult to speak about elsewhere. Thoughts and feelings that seem confusing or contradictory. Reactions that do not seem to make sense. Parts of yourself that have remained private or out of awareness. You do not need to have everything organised or fully understood before beginning therapy. Developing that understanding is often part of the therapeutic process.
The therapeutic relationship itself matters here. In psychodynamic work, the ways you relate to other people often show up inside the therapy room too — and when they do, they can be gently noticed and explored rather than passed over. That’s part of how change happens, rather than a side effect of it.
Alicia’s manner is warm, thoughtful, and compassionate, while also gently supporting reflection on things that may feel uncomfortable at times. Care is taken to move at a pace that feels respectful and manageable.
Alicia Shevlin (she/her) is a registered psychologist based in Melbourne, providing telehealth psychotherapy to adults across Australia. She holds a Master of Applied Psychology (Clinical Psychology) from Victoria University, where her training took an integrative approach spanning both cognitive behavioural and psychodynamic traditions. In her current practice, she works psychodynamically.
Alicia began her career in mental health in 2016 in the domestic and family violence sector, and has since worked across community, university, and public health settings before moving into private practice. She works with adults aged 18 and over, at all stages of adult life, and with people of all genders, sexual orientations, and sex characteristics.
AHPRA registration: PSY0002275993
Member: Australian Psychological Society
Alicia has training in a range of evidence-based approaches, including forms of cognitive behavioural therapy such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). In her current practice, however, she focuses exclusively on providing psychodynamic therapy because she believes it offers the richest framework for understanding many forms of psychological distress and supporting lasting psychological change.
This style of therapy allows for deeper exploration of the emotional patterns, relational dynamics, and unconscious processes that shape how a person thinks, feels, and relates to others — the material that sits just outside immediate awareness but still exerts real influence on daily life. If difficulties feel longstanding, repeated, or resistant to change, even when you already understand them intellectually, you might find this way of working helpful. Some people are drawn to this approach, having tried other therapies and found that something important was still missing.
Psychodynamic therapy also aims at more enduring change rather than working only at the level of symptom management. Alicia’s view is that lasting psychological change comes from this kind of meaningful self-understanding, rather than from a narrow focus on managing symptoms.
She also takes a non-pathologising approach. While Alicia is trained to diagnose and will offer a diagnosis where it’s genuinely useful, she places less emphasis on labels and more on understanding you as an individual, including how relationships, life circumstances, class, sexuality, and broader social pressures shape psychological difficulty. Distress is rarely just an individual problem.
Persistent worry, panic, social anxiety, obsessions, compulsions, or a nervous system that never quite settles. Therapy explores not only how anxiety shows up, but what it might be protecting against.
Low mood, exhaustion, loss of interest, and the flatness that can make ordinary tasks feel effortful. Work often involves loss, self-worth, and patterns formed long before the current episode.
Both single-incident and complex trauma. Therapy focuses on how these experiences continue to affect thoughts, emotions, relationships, and sense of self, at a pace that feels safe and manageable.
Workplace difficulties, chronic stress, and feeling overwhelmed by demands that have become difficult to manage.
Grief and loss, changes in identity, work or education, decisions that feel complex or overwhelming, and periods where the shape of your life is shifting. This includes the psychological impact of chronic illness, disability, and complex medical conditions — an area of particular interest for Alicia.
Recurring relationship patterns, difficulty with conflict or intimacy, and exploring the ways you relate to yourself and others. Alicia works with individuals on relationship difficulties; though she does not provide couples therapy.
Difficulties with desire, intimacy, sexual anxiety, sexual shame, and questions of sexual identity — as well as distressing or recurrent patterns of sexual behaviour, including concerns about pornography use. Explored without judgement, with attention to the underlying emotional and relational factors.
Alicia also works with body image concerns, eating disorders, addiction or problematic substance use, anger, and identity-related concerns.
Alicia works with individuals and does not offer couples therapy. Sessions are for therapeutic support and are not conducted for medico-legal purposes, such as court reports or mandated legal requirements.
Alicia is based in Melbourne and works entirely via telehealth, with sessions held over Zoom. For many people, this is the more workable option — no commute, no waiting room, and therapy that fits into a morning rather than taking half a day. It also means individual therapy is available whether you’re in inner Melbourne, regional Victoria, or another state entirely.
Being in your own space can make a difference to the work itself. Some people find it easier to speak openly from somewhere familiar, particularly when what they’re bringing feels vulnerable. Practically, you’ll need a private space where you won’t be overheard, a stable internet connection, and a device with a camera. Headphones help.
Appointments are available on weekday mornings only, scheduled in Australian Eastern Standard Time (or AEDT during Victorian daylight saving), both before and after 9:00 am AEST.
Service area: Because of the session times, telehealth with Alicia is typically most suitable for people in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory.
So whether you’re searching for an online psychologist in Melbourne, a psychologist in Victoria offering telehealth, or a telehealth psychologist near you in Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra, or Darwin, individual therapy telehealth is available Australia-wide within those time zones.
Individual therapy is one-on-one work between you and a psychologist, focused entirely on your experience. Unlike group or couples work, the whole session belongs to you. With Alicia, sessions run for 50 minutes and involve talking, reflecting, and thinking together, rather than following a predetermined structure.
Therapy can help you understand what you’re feeling and why, recognise patterns that keep repeating, work through difficult experiences at a manageable pace, and develop greater self-compassion and clarity. Psychodynamic therapy in particular aims to support enduring change through self-understanding, rather than symptom management alone.
The first session is largely about getting to know each other. Alicia will ask about what’s brought you to therapy, some of your background, and what you’re hoping might change. You don’t need to have it organised in advance, and you’re welcome to ask her questions too. The first 2–6 sessions form an assessment period for both of you to consider whether the fit feels right.
The length of therapy varies depending on your experiences, goals, and what you hope to explore. Alicia’s approach is generally medium to long-term, with regular sessions recommended where possible to support continuity and depth of the work. Many people begin with weekly or fortnightly sessions, and frequency can be reviewed over time as therapy progresses and your needs change.
No. You can book directly with Alicia without a referral or a mental health care plan. However, Medicare rebates are only available with a valid plan and referral from your GP or psychiatrist. Without one, sessions are privately billed. See current session fees.
No. Many people begin therapy without a formal diagnosis. People often come when they feel stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure about recurring patterns in their life, or when something simply doesn’t feel right. Therapy is useful both for diagnosed conditions and for people wanting to understand themselves better.
Psychodynamic therapy explores how past experiences and unconscious emotional patterns shape the way you think, feel, and relate in the present. It pays close attention to relationships, including the therapeutic relationship itself, and to material sitting outside immediate awareness. The aim is deeper self-understanding that supports lasting change.
CBT often focuses on identifying patterns in thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, and may involve structured exercises or strategies to practise between sessions. Psychodynamic therapy places greater emphasis on understanding emotional patterns, relationships, and experiences that may continue to shape how you think, feel, and respond, including in ways that are not always immediately obvious.
Alicia provides psychodynamic therapy because she believes this approach offers a meaningful way of exploring the deeper patterns underlying psychological difficulties. It may be particularly suited to people who are interested in understanding why certain patterns continue, even when they already have insight into them.
Yes, all of Alicia’s sessions are delivered via telehealth over Zoom. She is based in Melbourne and works with adults across Australia, subject to the weekday-morning AEST session times.
Yes, if you have a valid Mental Health Treatment Plan and referral from your GP or psychiatrist. Rebates are available for up to 10 individual sessions per calendar year, and Eating Disorder Treatment Plans are also accepted.
The session fee under the Medicare Better Access Program is $210, with a rebate of $101.55 per session paid into your nominated bank account by Services Australia. Rebates are subject to eligibility requirements. Enquiries are also welcome from clients accessing therapy through the Victorian Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS, formerly VOCAT), and from self-managed and plan-managed NDIS participants.
Starting therapy takes some deciding, and there’s no need to rush it. If you’d like to find out whether working together feels right, booking a free 15-minute phone call is a straightforward first step.
The information below outlines what therapy involves, how telehealth sessions work, and practical details regarding fees and Medicare rebates.
Learn about how a range of mental health issues can be treated with psychodynamic therapy.
Access therapy without leaving home. Learn what to expect from beginning telehealth therapy.
Medicare rebates available for eligible patients. A referral from your GP or psychiatrist is required.