Gold Coast Psychologist | Deborah Jackson Psychology

Want to feel more integrated and whole?

Psychological therapy that is trauma informed, somatically anchored and neurodivergence affirming.

I work with adults navigating trauma impacts, stress and life transitions to restore ease and connection.

Deborah Jackson, Psychologist & Holistic Therapist

Book a session Download nervous system guide

Gold Coast & Telehealth Psychologist Call or msg

0423 167 376

Life can sometimes bend us away from our truth.

Sometimes we never got the chance to develop our authentic self. Often adult relationships mirror early life attachment and other trauma and the dynamics can become both challenging and confusing.

This can impact our health and wellbeing – see our nervous system work too hard too often and ultimately fail on some level, shut down, operate from a place of protection, create conditions that can lead to long term illness.

I’m a big believer in the power of being kindly seen and validated in our experiences, that empathy and validation from another, in full presence, can be an important bridge to wholeness.

Telehealth puts support in arms reach.

Book your online session.

For many people, life feels fast, always juggling. It can feel hard to make time for what’s important, including sorting out your health and wellbeing.

For others, the privacy and comfort of having sessions at home is paramount.

Telehealth makes this possible and works well in most situations. You may use your valid Mental Health Care Plan to claim a Medicare rebate for the session, just like a face-to-face session.

Zoom or phone.

your authentic self

Do you feel inside like there is a better version of your life out there, but need some help accessing it?

Trauma or chronic stress may have fragmented your body-mind system.

Using evidence-based psychotherapies such as CBT, ACT and mindfulness based approaches — integrated with deep presence and somatic awareness — I help you experience, lovingly accept and integrate the cut-off parts, bringing ease to an overstretched nervous system.

This ease of being allows you better access to your authentic self and guiding wisdom and supports you to create in your life from this place.

The increasing wholeness and harmony in your brain, body, mind and nervous system frees up more connection, purpose, peace and vitality in your life, health, work and relationships.

Deborah Jackson, Psychologist & Holistic Therapist

For nearly 4 decades I have been helping people and organisations tap into their essence and bring that through into life creations.

I am a Psychologist and also a Holistic Counsellor. I have extensive training in mindfulness and meditation, energy and consciousness.

I believe our bodies hold wisdom for our minds to explore and will guide us forward into better living, given the right environments.

Our nervous systems are the channels through which we experience and engage with the world. We need to know them intimately and work with them.

Your Zone of Presence mini course.

A gift from me to you to help you understand your nervous system and its signals more clearly. Includes a 7 day challenge, you might want to do and share with a friend or partner.

An e-book and companion audio recording.

Get your mini-course

Zone of Presence guide cover showing calm yellow design and text inviting readers to connect with their authentic self

How do I help you heal from trauma impacts?

Here I share about my model for healing Complex PTSD – the things that shaped our nervous system when it was growing itself, that were overwhelming. These are things that can be triggered into play in our physiology today, in our bodies as an automatic process. Healing trauma is not primarily a mind job. It’s an integrated mind-body-social-relational task.

Learn more about healing your trauma here.

Some human Challenges I help people with

Emotional wellbeing

A: When worries don’t switch off, the body feels constantly on edge, and everyday life feels overwhelming. More about resolving anxiety.

A: When past experiences keep resurfacing in the present, leaving you unsettled or disconnected. More about healing trauma.

A: When life feels flat, heavy, or drained of energy, and joy feels out of reach. More about depression – how to listen to it and evolve it.

A: Grief is profound sadness and despair that arises from loss. This can occur after the death of a loved one, the end of an important relationship, an empty nest, the effects of illness, the loss of a pet or discovering you can’t have children. Counselling can help with acceptance and adjustment.

A: We listen in to your thoughts, feelings and instincts, understand where something in your world is out of balance, how that got created and what’s keeping it going. We explore together what is needed for more peace, purpose or connection. There is space for reflection and observing parts of you that are emerging, what they need and how to best meet them for healing.

More about how counselling with me works.

Relationships & connection

A: Counselling can help you both see the larger patterns and dynamics at play in the relating between you. Together you can reorient around your shared values and start taking small actions towards more nourishing connection. We can look at the attachment styles and needs that are coming forward, how your neurotypes interact and explore new ways of relating in real time.

A: Being aware of the inter-generational nature of trauma impacts is a big first step. In session we look at the family nervous system – who is impacting who and how. Then we look at what shaped your nervous system during your developmental years and what is triggering overwhelm or trouble with boundaries, for example, or self-regulation now. When you are better resourced, you can bring more flexible, creative and assertive responses.

More about how counselling with me works.

Neurodiversity

A: To begin with, we can explore patterns of how energy, attention and focus work in your life, what your sensory needs and sensitivities may be, what social challenges you may experience, where and how you might be ‘masking’ to act in ways that don’t draw attention to differences. Sometimes this can have a cost to your health and sense of identity.

If you would like further clarity, you may like to book in for a formal assessment.

A: For some people, it is enough to read, watch learn, speak with a health professional and start to build a picture for themselves.

For others, there is an intense curiousity to gather data and self-reflect, to have the evidence, if you like, to back up the lived experience and having gone through life feeling misunderstood or lacking clarity about their neurotype.

Both can bring enormous relief and validation, to understand your neurotype and be able to communicate around it more effectively, make and seek appropriate accomodations.

A: Historically, most research and professional training to recognise neurodivergence, was centred around the behaviour of little boys. Professionals, teachers and allied health works were trained to recognise this more external presentation of the brain type.

In more recent years, it has been observed that the brain style often shows up differently in girls and women – the behaviour can be more internal, they are socialised to mask more effectively. If you can’t see yourself in the social stories and are not recognised by professionals, how do you understand what you are dealing with?

This has led to a lot of missed diagnosis and mis-diagnosis of women and girls. Also a lot of associated trauma from trying to interface with the world in their neuro-native ways without realising the lack of alignment within ‘neuro-normative’ society.

It is also clear now that menapause and other key hormonal events and changes can land differently inside a neuro-divergent hormonal system and sometimes reveal the underlying neurotype, when demands of managing emotional and physiological intensity no longer allow for the same level of masking traits – to self and others.

More about how counselling with me works.

A: Neuro-affirming practice, for me, means holding kind curiousity about how each person’s brain processes information and how that in turn affects the way they pursue life goals and connect with others.

Everyone is different. I can ask informed questions that bring clarity, but the exploration is a collaboration. I listen with a hormonal lens, a health lens, a social lens and a flow state lens.

I like to understand where each person is at in life, in relation to their goals and make a plan together to support this using natural energy flow or focus states and individual and brain type strengths.

Therapist mentoring & supervision

A: You’ve invested a lot in your training and professional development. You’re probably good at what you do. But you’re tired or feeling like to reward to effort ratio is out. It’s tempting to think about managing burn out as a series of bubble baths and walks on the beach.

Often it’s also about tuning in more deeply to how you’re evolving in your life and your work – it might be that the client group you wish to serve is changing with you or that you could benefit from changing the structure through which you offer your services.

Let’s tune in together and find out what could bring thge sustainable changes you’re looking for.

A: Trauma-informed somatic practice. Blending soulful work with evidence based therapies. A reflective, soul-aligned space to deepen in your work.

Life transitions & meaning

A: Being authentic means cultivating awareness of your thoughts, feelings, body sensations, emotions, relationship dynamics and environment, and working with this awareness in service of living a rich and true life, that prioritised your values-based goals.

A: This is such a precious time for many women, Dads too. Finally having the freedom to explore activities, goals and life desires with yourself centred, rather than family priorities. It can also be a little disorienting and require a review of your values, goals and sense of self. Life coaching can be a wonderful way to explore this.