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Confidential, non-judgemental therapy for sexual and intimacy concerns with a Melbourne-based registered psychologist. Sessions online, weekday mornings AEST.
Sexual concerns can be some of the hardest issues to talk about. Many people carry them for years without ever saying them out loud, not to a partner, a friend, or even a doctor. There can be a quiet assumption that you’re the only one, that it’s too embarrassing to raise, or that it’s not the kind of thing you’re allowed to seek help for.
You’re not the only one, and you don’t have to manage it alone. Difficulties with desire, intimacy, sexual anxiety, shame, or questions about your sexuality are far more common than the silence around them suggests. They can also be closely tied to the rest of your emotional life, including anxiety, self-worth, relationships, and past experiences. This means they can benefit from being understood, rather than simply managed.
This can be a space to talk about those things without judgement, at whatever pace feels right.
For this kind of work, it matters that you have somewhere you can speak openly and without fear of judgement.
As a registered psychologist, Alicia takes your privacy seriously and is bound by professional and legal obligations around confidentiality. There are some circumstances where confidentiality cannot be maintained, such as where there are concerns about someone’s safety. Your records are also kept securely.
Because sessions are held via telehealth, you can attend from your own private space rather than a clinic waiting room. For concerns that may feel particularly personal, this can make it easier to speak openly.
Just as importantly, no concern is too embarrassing, unusual, or difficult to talk about. Alicia explores sexual and intimacy concerns in a warm, non-judgemental way, with attention to the emotional and relational factors that may sit underneath them. You won’t be shamed, lectured, or told what your sexuality should look like.
Whatever you’re carrying, it can be spoken about here.
Sexual and intimacy concerns can take many forms. You might be dealing with a specific difficulty, trying to understand a change in your sexual experiences, or wanting to explore something that has been difficult to talk about.
Low or changed sexual desire, loss of interest, or differences in desire between partners. Desire is affected by a great deal, including stress, mood, self-worth, relationship dynamics, and life stage. Therapy explores these emotional and relational threads rather than treating desire as a switch to be flipped. Where there may be a physical cause, it is worth checking this with your GP alongside therapy.
Anxiety about sex, worry about performing, self-consciousness, or a fear of not being good enough that gets in the way of being present. Concerns about sexual functioning, including erectile difficulties, premature ejaculation, vaginismus, and related conditions, can also contribute to anxiety and distress. Therapy explores the emotional factors that may be involved, alongside appropriate medical assessment where needed.
Difficulty with emotional or physical closeness, feeling disconnected from a partner, or finding intimacy hard even when you want it. Therapy can explore what makes closeness feel difficult or unsafe, and where those patterns may have started.
Shame, guilt, or distress connected to your sexuality, sometimes tied to upbringing, culture, religion, or past experiences. This can also include shame about the kinds of sexual fantasies, interests, or fetishes that appeal to you. Sexual shame can quietly shape how you feel about yourself well beyond the bedroom. Therapy offers a space to understand it and loosen its hold, without judgement.
Questions about sexual identity, orientation, or what feels right and true for you. Therapy provides space to explore these without pressure toward any particular answer. The work is about understanding yourself, not arriving at a conclusion someone else has decided on.
Patterns of sexual behaviour that feel out of control, distressing, or at odds with your values, including concerns about pornography use. Therapy explores what may be underneath the behaviour and the distress around it, rather than starting from a fixed label.
Sexual concerns rarely sit apart from relationships. Differences in desire, difficulty communicating about sex, or intimacy that has changed over time can all bring people to therapy. This is individual work focused on your own experience. Alicia works with individuals and does not provide couples therapy. Read more about relationship challenges.
Where sexual concerns are connected to past sexual trauma or other difficult experiences, therapy can explore how these continue to affect intimacy, safety, and your relationship with your own body, at a pace you control and never before you’re ready. This is often worked with as part of trauma therapy.
If you’re concerned about chemsex or party and play, therapy with Alicia can provide a non-judgemental space to explore your experiences with someone who understands queer drug and sex culture. This might include concerns about substance use or sexual health, identity and sexuality, the impact of your experiences on relationships or wellbeing, or the effects of trauma and difficult experiences.
Alicia works with people of all genders, sexual orientations, and sex characteristics, including intersex people, and provides therapeutic support to transgender and gender-diverse people.
Your identity is understood and respected rather than questioned or treated as the problem. Whether you’re exploring your sexuality or gender, navigating questions of identity, or simply want a therapist you don’t have to explain the basics to, you can talk about these things openly and without judgement.
Alicia is also attentive to the ways gender, sexuality, and broader social pressures can shape mental health. She sees psychological difficulty in the context of a person’s whole life, rather than as an individual failing.
If you’re looking for an LGBTQ+ affirming psychologist or gender-affirming therapeutic support, you’re welcome here.
Some people come to therapy because their pornography use feels out of control, is affecting their relationships, or is bound up with shame and difficulty changing established patterns. For some, this may also occur alongside substance use. Whatever the circumstances, distress about your pornography use is a valid reason to seek support.
Therapy explores the place pornography use has in your life, including what the behaviour may be doing for you, what feelings it may help you manage, and what may sit underneath the sense of being out of control. You might understand your use as an addiction, or you may be unsure how to make sense of it. Either way, the focus is on understanding your experience and the patterns that have developed around it.
This is an area Alicia has studied directly. She is a published researcher, with peer-reviewed research examining how people come to understand their pornography use, including through the lens of self-diagnosed “addiction.” This background informs a considered, non-judgemental approach to pornography-related concerns, focused on understanding your experience rather than applying a predetermined framework. You can read more on the dedicated pornography addiction page.
Sexual concerns rarely exist in isolation. They can be connected to broader emotional and relational factors, including anxiety, depression, trauma, self-worth, difficulties with emotional regulation, or patterns in how you relate to others. What shows up in your sexual life can sometimes have roots in other parts of your experience.
Alicia works psychodynamically, which means therapy explores these underlying factors rather than treating a sexual concern as an isolated symptom to be fixed. Putting words to experiences that have felt unspeakable, understanding where shame or anxiety came from, and noticing patterns as they emerge can create the possibility for something to genuinely shift, rather than simply being worked around.
You don’t need to have a clearly defined problem to seek help with sexual concerns. You might be struggling with something that is causing significant distress, or you might simply want to understand yourself, your sexuality, or your relationships more clearly. Both are valid reasons to come to therapy. It may be worth speaking with a psychologist if:
Whether you’re struggling with something specific or simply curious about yourself, there’s no particular threshold you need to reach before seeking support.
The two overlap, and both can help. Alicia is a psychologist who works with the emotional, relational, and psychological dimensions of sexual concerns. Sex therapy may place more emphasis on specific sexual difficulties, education, and practical strategies, depending on the practitioner’s training and approach. A GP may also be appropriate where there could be a physical or medical cause.
These approaches can also complement one another. If you’re unsure what kind of support would be most appropriate, Alicia can discuss this with you.
Alicia Shevlin (she/her) is a registered psychologist and clinical psychology registrar, based in Melbourne and working with adults across Australia via telehealth.
Sexual and intimacy concerns are an area Alicia has engaged with as a researcher as well as a clinician: she is published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, with peer-reviewed work on how people understand pornography use and self-diagnosed “addiction.” 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, and she is currently completing her clinical psychology registrar program. In her current practice, she works psychodynamically.
AHPRA registration: PSY0002275993
Member: Australian Psychological Society
Alicia works psychodynamically, which means therapy explores not only the concern itself but the emotional and relational factors underneath 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.
Alicia is Melbourne-based and works entirely via telehealth, with sessions held over Zoom.
For sexual concerns in particular, telehealth can make a real difference. When what you’re bringing feels deeply private or carries shame, the prospect of sitting in a clinic waiting room, facing a receptionist, and then talking about it face to face can be enough to stop people seeking help at all. Attending from your own space — private, familiar, with the door closed — removes that barrier, and for many people makes it far easier to speak openly.
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 and matter more than usual for privacy here.
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, therapy for sexual concerns 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 sexuality therapist in Victoria, a sexual concerns psychologist offering telehealth from Melbourne, or confidential online support elsewhere in eastern and central Australia, sessions are available within those time zones.
Yes. Concerns about desire, intimacy, sexual anxiety, identity, or shame are more common than the silence around them suggests. Having a sexual concern doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. What matters is whether it’s causing distress or affecting your life, in which case support may help.
They overlap, and both can be helpful. Alicia is a psychologist who works with the emotional, relational, and psychological dimensions of sexual concerns, including anxiety, shame, self-worth, and the impact of past experiences. Sex therapy may place more emphasis on specific sexual difficulties, education, and practical strategies, depending on the practitioner’s training and approach. A GP can also help identify or assess physical and medical causes. These approaches can complement one another.
Yes. Alicia works with people of all genders, sexual orientations, and sex characteristics, including intersex people, and provides therapeutic support to transgender and gender-diverse people. Your identity is respected and can be explored without being treated as the problem.
It depends on what is contributing to the change in your sexual desire. Low libido can have a physical or medical cause, including health conditions or medication side effects, in which case your GP can help assess this. Therapy may still help you come to terms with changes in your sexual functioning and their impact on your wellbeing or relationships. Where low libido is related to psychological or relational factors, such as stress, anxiety, mood, self-worth, relationship difficulties, or past experiences, therapy can help you understand what may be affecting your desire.
As a registered psychologist, Alicia is bound by professional and legal obligations around privacy and confidentiality. There are some circumstances where confidentiality cannot be maintained, such as where there are concerns about someone’s safety. These limits are explained as part of informed consent before therapy begins. Records are also kept securely.
It varies depending on the concern and what it’s connected to. Some concerns may be worked through over a relatively defined period, while others, particularly where they are connected to longstanding patterns or past experiences, may benefit from longer-term work. Alicia’s psychodynamic approach is generally suited to medium- to long-term therapy, with the pace discussed throughout.
No. You can see Alicia without a referral or a Mental Health Treatment Plan, and you don’t need a diagnosis to begin therapy. A referral from a GP or psychiatrist is needed if you want to claim a Medicare rebate. Without a referral, sessions are privately billed. See current session fees.
They can. Differences in desire, difficulty communicating about sex, sexual anxiety, or changes in intimacy can affect a relationship, while relationship dynamics can also shape sexual concerns. This is individual therapy focused on your own experience and patterns. Read more about relationship challenges.
Yes. Desire, arousal, and sexual experience can change over time and across different stages of life. These changes can be confusing or distressing. Therapy provides space to understand what’s happening for you, including the emotional, relational, and broader life factors involved, rather than assuming something is simply wrong.
They can. Early experiences, messages absorbed about sex and the body, difficult or traumatic experiences, and past relationships can all continue to shape sexual wellbeing in the present, sometimes outside conscious awareness. Understanding these connections is an important part of psychodynamic therapy. Where past experiences involve trauma, this can be explored at a pace you control. Read more about trauma therapy.
Yes. Anxiety about performance, being judged, or emotional closeness can all contribute to sexual concerns, sometimes creating a cycle where anxiety itself makes sexual experiences more difficult. Therapy explores what may be driving the anxiety and what sits underneath it, rather than only addressing it at the surface. Read more about anxiety treatment.
Yes. Sexual shame can be shaped by experiences within family, culture, religion, relationships, or other parts of your life. It can affect how you see yourself and your sexuality, sometimes long after the original experiences. Therapy offers a non-judgemental space to understand where that shame comes from and develop a different relationship with your sexuality.
Sexual concerns can be difficult to talk about, particularly when shame or uncertainty is involved. Therapy provides a private, non-judgemental space to talk about these concerns and understand them in more depth.
A free 15-minute phone call is a chance to discuss whether therapy might be right for you.
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.