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Psychodynamic support through change, uncertainty and new chapters — with a Melbourne-based registered psychologist. Sessions online, weekday mornings AEST.
Change unsettles us, whether it’s change we chose or change that was thrust upon us. A new job, a move, the end of a relationship, becoming a parent, or the children leaving home can bring excitement, relief, loss, uncertainty, or several conflicting feelings at once. Even changes that are right, necessary, or deeply wanted can leave you feeling strangely unmoored. Being pleased about a decision and being disoriented by it are not mutually exclusive.
Big transitions have a way of surfacing feelings you didn’t expect. Grief for what’s ending, uncertainty about what’s ahead, or questions about who you are now that a familiar role has shifted. Some changes bring loss or disappointment that cannot simply be reframed as an opportunity. Others may be welcome but still leave you feeling unsettled by the unfamiliar. It can be quietly destabilising in a way that’s hard to explain to people who only see the change on paper.
You don’t need to be in crisis to seek support through a transition. And if a change does feel overwhelming right now, that’s an equally valid reason to reach out. Sometimes, having a steady space to think with someone whose job is to listen and reflect alongside you is exactly what makes a difficult period easier to move through.
Transitions are periods of adjustment, and adjustment takes time, often more than the practical logistics of a change would suggest. Whatever the specific transition, there are experiences that many people recognise along the way. You might recognise some of these:
A major life change can affect how you feel and function in ways that aren’t always obvious from the outside. These responses are part of being human and don’t necessarily mean something is wrong. Adjustment counselling offers space to make sense of what a change is stirring up, so you’re not navigating it entirely alone.
People seek support around many different kinds of change. Whatever has changed in your life, what matters is how you are experiencing the transition and what it has brought up for you.
A change in work, whether chosen, imposed, or somewhere in between, can be more destabilising than it first appears. New roles, redundancy, returning to study, stepping back, or stepping up can all raise questions about identity, competence, and what you want your life to be about. Career change anxiety often isn’t really about the job itself, but about what the change means and what it asks of you.
The ending of a significant relationship is one of the more disorienting transitions there is. Alongside the practical upheaval, there’s often grief, a reshaping of identity, and questions about the future you’d imagined. Therapy after a relationship breakdown or divorce offers space to make sense of what happened and who you are on the other side of it. (For recurring patterns within relationships, rather than adjusting to an ending, see relationship challenges.)
Grief is a natural response to loss, and it doesn’t follow a predictable timeline. Sadness, disorientation, anger, numbness, or a loss of interest in everyday life can all be part of it. Grief isn’t an illness, and mourning isn’t something to be treated away.
At times, though, grief and depression can become intertwined. A significant loss can bring older losses to the surface, or awaken feelings that were hard to process at the time, including anger, relief, guilt, or ambivalence, which can carry their own difficulty.
For some people, grief becomes entangled with longstanding patterns that existed before the loss. Therapy can provide space to honour and make sense of your loss, while exploring whether other experiences have become bound up with it. Alicia works with grief and loss as a core part of her practice.
The transition into parenthood can bring profound change, emotionally and practically. While it’s often expected to feel joyful, it can also involve exhaustion, a loss of identity, changes to relationships, and feelings that are difficult to talk about. Therapy can provide space to make sense of the emotional impact of this transition and the shift in how you understand yourself. (If you’re experiencing persistent low mood after having a baby, you may also wish to read about depression treatment.)
When children leave home, or when working life ends, the shift can be far larger than expected. Roles that shaped decades of daily life fall away, and what’s left can be a mix of freedom, loss, and uncertainty about what comes next. Retirement adjustment and the empty-nest transition are genuinely significant passages, and they’re often underestimated, including by the people going through them, who might feel they have no right to struggle with something that looks, from the outside, like an easing of demands.
Midlife can bring a particular kind of reckoning with the choices you’ve made, the time that’s passed, and the question of what you want the rest of your life to be about. What’s sometimes dismissed as a “midlife crisis” is often something more meaningful: an identity in transition and a real search for purpose. Therapy offers space to explore these questions with depth, rather than rushing to resolve them.
A change in health, whether a diagnosis, a chronic condition, a disability, or an ongoing medical concern, is one of the more demanding transitions a person can face, and one that’s often under-supported. It can involve grief for the life or body you expected, adjusting to uncertainty, changes in identity, and a significant impact on relationships, work, and daily functioning.
Alicia has a particular interest in the psychological challenges that accompany chronic illness, disease, and disability, informed by her work in public health settings and her interest in disability justice. Therapy focuses on making sense of these experiences while supporting you to find meaning and purpose alongside them.
Relocating, whether interstate or to an unfamiliar place, can be quietly isolating, even when it’s a positive move. Leaving behind familiar surroundings, routines, and networks is its own kind of loss, and building a sense of belonging somewhere new takes time. Therapy can provide continuity and a steady space to think through the adjustment.
Transitions can be difficult not only because of the practical change involved, but because of what they can bring to the surface. An ending in the present can stir up feelings connected to previous losses. A change in role can raise questions about identity, self-worth and your future. For some people, a new loss can also bring up grief from earlier experiences. This can be particularly challenging if you haven’t had much opportunity to process what you’ve been through, either recently or in the past.
This is part of why a transition can feel harder than you expected, and why a change that you thought you would manage more easily can leave you feeling deeply unsettled. Sometimes a significant change brings longstanding feelings, conflicts, or patterns into clearer focus, creating an opportunity to understand them in a different way.
Psychodynamic therapy takes this seriously. Rather than treating a transition as a problem to be managed, it explores how the change connects to your history, your relationships, and the ways you have learned to respond to uncertainty, loss, and endings. Understanding what a transition is stirring up, not just dealing with its practical demands, can help you move through the change with a clearer sense of yourself.
Sometimes the impact of a life change becomes clear through changes in how you’re feeling or functioning. You might notice changes in your sleep, mood or concentration, feel stuck or uncertain, or find that feelings you weren’t expecting have become harder to manage.
It may be worth speaking with a psychologist if:
Support through a transition isn’t only for when things have become unmanageable. Therapy can also be useful when you want to slow down, understand what the change is bringing up for you, and find a way forward that feels more considered.
Alicia Shevlin (she/her) is a registered psychologist and clinical psychology registrar, based in Melbourne and working with adults across Australia via telehealth. 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 has worked in mental health since 2016, beginning in the domestic and family violence sector and going on to work across community, university and public health settings before entering private practice. Grief and loss, identity, and life transitions are core parts of her practice, and she has a particular interest in the psychological impact of chronic illness, disability and complex medical conditions. She works with adults aged 18 and over, and with people of all genders, sexual orientations and sex characteristics.
AHPRA registration: PSY0002275993
Member: Australian Psychological Society
Alicia works psychodynamically, which means therapy explores not only the change you’re facing, but what it connects to and stirs up — the experiences, relationships and patterns that shape how you’re moving through it.
Alicia works with individuals and does not provide couples therapy. Sessions are for therapeutic support and are not conducted for medico-legal purposes such as court reports. Third-party funding via WorkCover, TAC or DVA is not currently available.
Alicia is Melbourne-based and works entirely via telehealth, with sessions held over Zoom.
There’s a particular logic to telehealth for transitions specifically: transitions so often involve upheaval to routine and location — a move, a job change, a relationship ending, a change in health. Online therapy means the work can continue through the disruption rather than being interrupted by it. If you relocate, or your circumstances shift, therapy doesn’t have to stop and restart — that continuity can matter a great deal during a period when much else is changing.
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, life transitions counselling with Alicia is typically most suitable for people in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory. Whether you’re looking for a life changes therapist in Victoria, a life transitions psychologist offering telehealth from Melbourne, or online counselling elsewhere in eastern and central Australia, sessions are available within those time zones.
Psychodynamic therapy explores not only the practical change you’re facing, but what it connects to and stirs up — earlier losses, questions of identity, and the patterns in how you handle uncertainty and endings. Transitions often bring longstanding material to the surface, and understanding that material, rather than only managing the logistics, is often what allows you to move through the change with a clearer sense of yourself.
This is individual therapy — one-on-one work focused on your experience, including a relationship ending or a change in your relationships. Alicia works with individuals and does not provide couples therapy. Life transitions counselling is about adjusting to and making sense of change, including relationship breakdowns and divorce. If your concern is more about recurring patterns within your relationships, you may find the relationship challenges page more relevant.
“Adjustment disorder” is a recognised diagnosis describing significant emotional distress in response to an identifiable stressor or life change, where the reaction is more intense or prolonged than might be expected and affects daily functioning. A GP or psychologist can assess whether it applies. That said, you don’t need this or any diagnosis to seek support through a transition — many people benefit from therapy while adjusting to change without meeting the criteria for any particular condition.
It varies depending on the transition and what it’s connected to. Some changes are worked through over a relatively defined period; others open into deeper, longer-term exploration, particularly where a transition has surfaced longstanding material. Alicia’s psychodynamic approach is generally suited to medium- to long-term work, with pace and duration discussed throughout. Under a Mental Health Treatment Plan, Medicare rebates are available for up to 10 individual sessions per calendar year.
No to both. You can book directly with Alicia without a referral or a Mental Health Treatment Plan, and you don’t need a diagnosis to begin. A referral from your GP or psychiatrist is only needed if you want to claim a Medicare rebate. Without one, sessions are privately billed. See current session fees.
Transitions can be disorienting, but they can also create an opportunity to understand yourself differently. Having a steady space to think about what a change is stirring up, and how it is affecting your sense of self, can help you move through the transition with greater clarity.
The free 15-minute phone call is a small 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.