Mental health Social Worker,Gestalt Psychotherapist
Fitzroy, Melbourne
Clare McDonald
She/Her
Bachelor of Social Work (Hons), Advanced Training Gestalt Psychotherapy
Areas of expertise:
Adjustment disorder and difficult life stagers
Anxiety disorders
Autism spectrum
Chronic pain/pain management
Depression
Eating disorders
Grief and loss
Phobia
Sexual/gender identity
Substance abuse disorders
Trauma
PTSD, Complex PTSD
Bipolar
Personality Disorders
Reproductive identity and decision making
Reproductive loss
Sexual exploitation
Working with people with intellectual disabilities
Clare is an accredited Mental Health Social Worker and Gestalt Psychotherapist with 10 years’ experience working in the public and private sector of counselling and therapeutic services. Clare completed her bachelors (Hons.) degree in Ireland and four-year advanced training in gestalt psychotherapy in Melbourne, Australia. Clare offers a warm, relational approach to therapy where you can expect to be supported and challenged. She believes that the relational approach to therapy can be transformative, encourage deeper meaning-making and self-acceptance.
Clare’s areas of specialty are working with victim/survivors of abuse, sexual violence, reproductive trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, bereavement, and loneliness. Whether or not you have a formal diagnosis or not, her interest is in your lived experiences and how this has shaped you in the present moment. Clare acknowledges that ‘recovering’ from traumatic experience requires trust, safety and a pace that feels right for you. There may not be a quick fix solution to what you bring to therapy, but she will help you to help yourself to cultivate curiosity and self-compassion and will encourage an increase of self-awareness and connection to all parts of you, embracing your whole self.
Clare offers a space for all people who want to connect or reconnect back to themselves in creating a sense of home and steadiness within themselves.
“The journey of aliveness, engagement in the world, risk taking, and connectedness is the grandest journey of all” – Close & Reese, 2018.