Miss Gabrielle-Beth Volovsky, BA

People seek counselling for many different reasons. You might be feeling anxious or overwhelmed, struggling in a relationship, putting enormous pressure on yourself, finding it difficult to make decisions or take action, or noticing patterns that keep repeating despite your efforts to change them. You may be functioning well outwardly while struggling internally, or you may simply know that something is not working and want a space to properly understand what is happening. My work is informed by more than seven years of experience across counselling, mental health and performance-focused settings. This includes working with complex presentations involving substance use, emotional dysregulation, longstanding interpersonal difficulties and personality-related concerns. I hold a Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy and am a PACFA Certified Practising Counsellor. I work with adults experiencing anxiety, stress, burnout, overthinking, self-criticism, low confidence, reduced motivation, relationship difficulties, emotional overwhelm and periods of feeling stuck or disconnected from themselves. I also work with people wanting to understand how earlier experiences, coping strategies or longstanding relationship patterns may be affecting the way they think, feel and respond today. I have particular experience working with more complex presentations, including substance use and addictive behaviours, emotional dysregulation, longstanding interpersonal difficulties, trauma-related patterns and personality-related difficulties, including work with people who have diagnosed personality disorders. This has made me comfortable working with situations that do not fit neatly into one category, including ambivalence, relapse, intense emotions, conflicting needs and patterns that may have developed over many years. My style is warm, collaborative and engaged. I am not there simply to sit back and listen indefinitely. I will listen carefully, ask thoughtful questions, help you recognise patterns that can be difficult to see from inside the situation, and work with you to translate insight into practical change. I hold a Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy and am a PACFA Certified Practising Counsellor. My professional background includes counselling within complex mental health and substance-use settings, alongside performance-focused work. I draw on this experience to consider the whole person rather than reducing difficulties to a single symptom or diagnosis. You do not need to arrive with a diagnosis, a perfectly defined problem or a clear idea of what you want from counselling. We can begin with what is happening now and work together to understand what may be contributing to it, what you need, and what meaningful change would look like for you.