Rachel is a senior mental health occupational therapist with over 25 years of experience as a clinician and an educator. She has worked within inpatient and community mental health services as a case manager and therapist, and as a private practitioner delivering occupational therapy services, counselling, and supervision. For the last 13 years Rachel has also been teaching counselling and therapy skills to occupational therapy students at Edith Cowan University. Rachel completed her Master’s in Social Science (Counselling and Psychotherapy) in 2013 and works with individuals and groups. she continues to work as a university educator, teaching in the areas of mental health, counselling, and creativity. She has experience in leadership within health and education sectors, most recently as the occupational therapy course coordinator.

Rachel values the therapeutic relationship as a source of acceptance, safety, change and growth. She invites those she works with to enter into creative conversations to discover and explore themselves as occupational beings. Rachel is interested in periods of transition, social connectedness, and creativity in well-being. She works with people presenting with mental & emotional distress and offers supervision to graduate occupational therapists.

I value both ‘doing’ and ‘reflecting’ as critical components in understanding ourselves as occupational beings. I strive to bring a sense of playfulness into both the therapy space and into teaching spaces. Accessing our ‘playful’ self enables creativity in addressing the most serious of issues and problems and builds capacity to explore without judgement.