Areas of Expertise
Positive Psychology, Evidence-Based Psychotherapy, Clinical Psychologist Assessment, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Attachment, Object Relations, Masterson's Disorders of Self approach, Person-centred Psychotherapy, Psychoeducation, Interpersonal Psychotherapy & Consultation.
How I Can Help
Therapy
Allison works in a way that is warm, direct and evidence based. Sessions are not about being assessed or managed. They are about being understood well enough that change becomes possible.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and neuroscience informed wellbeing
Allison's primary therapeutic approach is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, one of the third wave cognitive behavioural therapies. Traditional cognitive behaviour therapy works by identifying and challenging the content of unhelpful thoughts. Third wave approaches work instead on the relationship a person has with their thoughts, feelings and memories.
The aim is not to argue yourself out of distress or to think your way into feeling better. It is to loosen the grip that difficult internal experiences have on behaviour, so that life is directed by what matters to you rather than by what you are trying to avoid.
In practice this means building six capacities: contact with the present moment, willingness to make room for difficult internal experiences, stepping back from unhelpful thinking, a steadier sense of self beneath the roles you carry, clarity about your values, and committed action that reflects them.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has a strong evidence base across anxiety, depression, chronic stress and burnout, trauma, chronic pain and adjustment to illness, injury and disability. It suits people who are already capable and already trying hard, because it stops asking them to work harder at being fine and starts asking what they want their life to stand for.
Alongside this, Allison draws on neuroscience informed principles of wellbeing. Understanding how the nervous system responds to threat, sustained load and recovery makes sense of exhaustion, hypervigilance, shutdown, irritability, disrupted sleep and the physical symptoms that so often accompany prolonged stress.
Wellbeing is not a fixed trait that some people possess and others do not. It involves skills that can be learned, practised and strengthened throughout life. Therapy supports four interconnected capacities: awareness, connection, insight and purpose. Awareness helps people notice their internal and external experiences more clearly. Connection strengthens supportive relationships, compassion and belonging. Insight helps people understand their emotional, cognitive, developmental and relational patterns. Purpose supports values, meaning and movement towards a life that feels personally worthwhile.
Where it is clinically useful, Allison also draws on Compassion Focused Therapy, attachment theory, Family Systems Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Object Relations Therapy and Solution Focused Therapy, according to each client's needs.
Her approach is trauma informed, neuroaffirming, attachment informed, strengths based and biopsychosocial. Complex psychological and neuroscientific ideas are translated into clear, practical strategies that clients can understand and use in everyday life.
Therapy for the people everyone else relies on
Allison works exclusively with adults aged 18 years and over, including healthcare workers, teachers, psychologists, leaders, carers and other helping professionals. She also supports women, parents, couples, neurodivergent adults and high achieving people who may appear capable on the outside while privately feeling anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted or burdened by carrying too much for too long. Her areas of focus include anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, perfectionism, burnout, chronic over responsibility, compassion fatigue and moral distress. Allison has particular expertise in workplace psychological health, including recovery following bullying, conflict, psychosocial hazards, occupational violence, workplace trauma and psychologically unsafe organisational cultures. She also supports women navigating reproductive and women's health concerns, perinatal and postnatal mental health, adjustment to parenthood and the emotional complexities of parenting. Allison brings more than 20 years of experience across mental health and the helping professions. She has worked as a psychologist for 15 years, has 10 years of experience as an endorsed Clinical Psychologist and has spent approximately 13 years working across hospital and healthcare services. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society College of Clinical Psychologists and a Psychology Board of Australia approved supervisor. Alongside Let It Go Psychology, Allison works full time as a Senior Clinical Psychologist within the public hospital system. She supports healthcare staff, teams and leaders through individual therapy, management consultation, professional education, critical incident support and longer term team interventions. This means she genuinely understands the pressures of long shifts, on call responsibilities, emotional labour, high cognitive demands, workplace trauma, leadership pressure and trying to care for yourself while remaining responsible for the wellbeing of others. Allison has operated Let It Go Psychology alongside her full time career since 2016, regularly providing private appointments outside ordinary business hours and on weekends. She understands that busy professionals, carers and parents cannot always attend therapy during a standard working day. Let It Go Psychology was therefore designed to provide experienced and flexible telehealth care that can fit more realistically around demanding work, family and caring responsibilities. Allison's approach is evidence based, trauma informed, neuroaffirming, attachment informed, neuroscience informed and strengths based. She looks beyond symptoms to understand the whole person, including their nervous system, physical health, relationships, identity, workplace, culture and life experiences. Therapy is warm and compassionate, while also being honest, practical and focused on meaningful change. Allison does not automatically assume that the individual is the problem, particularly when distress has developed within an unhealthy workplace, relationship or broader system. Although Allison has extensive previous experience in paediatric, developmental and family services, Let It Go Psychology does not assess or treat children or adolescents. Her advanced training in attachment, early development, parenting, family relationships and the Circle of Security framework now informs her therapeutic work with adults, parents and couples.
Mental Health
Anxiety, including generalised anxiety, OCD, phobias, health and infant-related anxiety in new and expecting parents, perfectionism, perinatal anxiety and depression, and PTSD
Depression (reactive and postnatal)
Eating disorders
Personality disorders
Trauma
Relationships
Commitment preparation
Conflict resolution
Partner support
Parenting
General Health
Addictions
Relaxation
Weight loss, including weight loss surgery counselling and support
Sleeping difficulties
Coping with illness
Personal
Anger management
Assertiveness training
Goal setting
Grief and loss
Life transition and adjustment issues
Motivation in life and career
Self-esteem and self development
Sexuality
Shyness and social skills deficits
Workplace and bullying issues
Adult Neurodevelopment, Neurodiversity and Rehabilitation
Development does not stop in childhood. Our neurotype, early relationships, cognitive development, attachment experiences and nervous system continue to influence how we understand ourselves, manage emotions, relate to others and respond to the demands of adult life, with neuroplasticity being central to post traumatic growth and learning.
Allison supports adults seeking to understand how neurodevelopmental differences, giftedness, disability, cognitive changes or neurological conditions may be affecting their wellbeing, identity, relationships and experiences of work. This may include autistic and ADHD adults, gifted and twice exceptional adults, people with intellectual disability or cognitive impairment, and adults adjusting to acquired brain injury, changes in functioning or other complex developmental and neurological experiences.
Allison also works with internalising patterns, including anxiety, withdrawal, shame, emotional inhibition and persistent self criticism, as well as externalising patterns such as anger, impulsive responses, interpersonal conflict and other behaviours of concern. These experiences are approached with curiosity and compassion, recognising that behaviour often communicates distress, unmet needs, sensory overload, difficulty with emotional regulation or an adaptation that once helped the person cope.
Her perspective is informed by substantial previous experience across mental health and disability services, developmental psychology, paediatric and family services, acquired brain injury rehabilitation, intellectual impairment and prolonged disorders of consciousness. This background gives Allison a sophisticated understanding of how changes in the brain, neuroplasticity, cognition, identity, independence and relationships can affect both the individual and the people who care for them.
Allison integrates neuroaffirming and rehabilitation psychology with attachment theory, relational neuroscience, psychodynamic thinking, contemporary psychoanalytic ideas and object relations perspectives. This allows therapy to explore both present day functioning and the deeper developmental, relational and emotional patterns that may be influencing a person's experience. The focus is not simply on reducing behaviour, but on understanding what the behaviour means, what function it may serve and what support the person needs to feel safer, more connected and more able to live in accordance with their values.
Current therapeutic support may focus on adjustment, identity, emotional regulation, relationships, workplace functioning, self understanding, caregiver stress, rehabilitation and quality of life. Let It Go Psychology does not provide child or adolescent developmental assessment or treatment. Therapeutic support for neurodivergent adults is also distinct from a formal autism, ADHD, cognitive or neuropsychological assessment, which may require referral to an appropriately specialised assessment service.
Psychological Questionnaires and Treatment Planning
Where clinically appropriate, Let It Go Psychology may use validated psychological questionnaires and adult outcome measures to support clinical formulation, treatment planning and the evaluation of therapeutic progress. These may include adult personality measures, such as the Personality Inventory for DSM 5, alongside measures of mood, anxiety, trauma, resilience, burnout, compassion fatigue and quality of life.
These questionnaires provide useful clinical information but do not constitute formal cognitive, educational, achievement, neuropsychological, forensic or diagnostic assessment. Let It Go Psychology is a telehealth practice focused on psychological treatment for adults.
Parenting and Attachment Programs for Adults
Let It Go Psychology offers evidence based parenting and attachment programs to adult parents, caregivers and educators who want to understand children's emotional and behavioural needs more deeply. These programs are delivered to adults and do not involve psychological assessment or treatment of children.
Allison believes that learning to recognise and respond to a child's attachment needs can be one of the most meaningful gifts an adult can offer the next generation. These programs translate complex attachment, developmental and behavioural theory into clear and practical strategies that adults can use in everyday relationships.
Circle of Security Programs
Allison offers the Circle of Security Parenting Program and the Circle of Security Classroom Professional Development Program to interested adults, parents, caregivers and educators.
The Circle of Security framework helps adults understand the attachment needs underlying children's behaviour. It provides a practical way of recognising when a child needs support to explore, when they need comfort and connection, and how an adult's own emotional experiences may influence their response.
Allison holds advanced training in the Circle of Security framework. Her extensive clinical background in attachment, early development, parenting and family relationships enables her to explain complex attachment theory in an accessible, compassionate and practical way.
This learning also informs Allison's broader therapeutic work with adult parents and couples, particularly where they are exploring the emotional experience of parenting, intergenerational patterns, relationships, self understanding and the kind of family environment they want to create.
Triple P Positive Parenting Program
Allison also offers the Triple P Positive Parenting Program to adult parents and caregivers seeking practical, positive and evidence informed parenting and behaviour support strategies.
Triple P helps adults understand the factors influencing behaviour, strengthen positive relationships, encourage helpful behaviours, respond consistently to behaviours of concern and develop realistic parenting strategies that suit their family.
This is an adult parenting education service. It does not constitute psychological assessment or treatment of a child.
If you are not sure whether I am the right fit, book an initial appointment and we can work that out together.