Meet Geoff
Counsellor & Psychotherapist

​I wasn't always a therapist. In 2011 I left the financial services industry, a field that I had occupied since 1990. My career transition was difficult and so, I sought counselling for the first time in my life. After about a year of soul-searching and personal reflection, I secured a role working with complex to extreme-needs young people - for three years - at a residential facility west of Brisbane; this is where my career reskilling began, starting with a Cert IV in Youth Work and including extensive training in therapeutic frameworks such as Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI), trauma informed care and complex trauma neurobiology. I also commenced a Diploma of Counselling. Throughout this time, I also spent time in Nauru - an Australian offshore processing centre - supporting unaccompanied minors as a residential worker for Save the Children. In 2016, my wife and I moved to Mission Beach in Far North Queensland, a long held dream, and soon after, I established Cassowary Coast Counselling. 
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​My passion today is my private practice, Cassowary Coast Counselling, where I work with young people and adults. I hold a Master's Degree in Gestalt Therapy, which I completed in 2020, and a Diploma of Counselling. I am also a member of the Australian Counselling Association. 

Alongside my practice, I hold a position with the Office of Public Guardian, an independent statutory agency (Department of Justice and Attorney-General), where I advocate for the rights of children placed into foster care in Queensland. 

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See my ACA profile

Contact me here

I am not a psychologist or psychiatrist

Counselling, or psychotherapy, is a professional activity that utilises an interpersonal relationship to enable people to develop self-understanding and to make changes in their lives. Professional counsellors work within a clearly contracted, principled relationship that enables individuals to obtain assistance in exploring and resolving issues of an interpersonal, intrapsychic, or personal nature. Professional Counselling is explicitly contracted and requires in-depth training to utilise a range of therapeutic interventions, and should be differentiated from the use of counselling skills by other professionals. ​ Source - Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia

Counselling can help where the diagnosis of a mental health condition is not required.

My Practice Space

"Gestalt methodology combines an Eastern focus on awareness and being in the here and now, with a Western emphasis on action and doing."
- Melnick & Nevis