Who we see
Adolescents from roughly 12 to 18, and young adults moving out of that bracket. The referrals we see most often are anxiety — school, social or performance — persistent low mood, difficulty getting to school, conflict at home, and social or friendship difficulties including where autism or ADHD is part of the picture.
Dr. Peter Saunders works with adolescents experiencing anxiety, depression, PTSD and social difficulties. Amelia McDermott works with adolescents around anxiety, perfectionism, self-esteem and relationships. Rebecca Staub, a family systemic psychotherapist, works with the family system itself — parental conflict, behavioural difficulties and school refusal — which is often the more useful frame when the difficulty sits between people rather than inside one of them.
How therapy with a teenager actually works
The first session is usually shorter on history and longer on establishing whether the young person wants to be there at all. Sometimes a parent joins for part of it; sometimes the young person prefers to come in alone from the start. Both are fine, and we ask rather than assume.
Confidentiality is explained to the adolescent directly, in terms they can hold: what stays in the room, what has to be shared, and what will be discussed with parents and when. Getting that clear early is usually the difference between a teenager who engages and one who attends.
Parents are kept appropriately involved without turning sessions into reporting. Where a family is the right unit of work, we say so, and Rebecca sees families together.
School refusal and school-related anxiety
School refusal is rarely defiance. It is most often anxiety that has found a reliable escape, and the longer the avoidance runs the harder the return becomes. Treatment works on both ends: reducing the anxiety, and building a graded, realistic return plan that the school, the family and the young person have all agreed to.
We will write to a school where that helps, with consent, and we work alongside GPs, paediatricians and school wellbeing teams rather than around them.
Medicare, referrals and consent
A Mental Health Care Plan from a GP, or a referral from a paediatrician or psychiatrist, makes sessions rebatable — $101.55 with a registered psychologist, $149.05 with a clinical psychologist, for up to ten individual sessions a calendar year. No referral is needed to begin privately.
Consent depends on maturity rather than a fixed birthday. In Victoria a young person who understands the nature and consequences of treatment can consent to it themselves. In practice most families attend together and consent is not contested; where it is, we work it through carefully at the first appointment.
Getting to us
Level 10, 53 Queen Street is inside the Free Tram Zone, a few minutes from Flinders Street Station and walkable from most of the CBD. That matters for a teenager travelling from school independently.
Sessions can also be held by secure video — useful for regional families, for a young person too anxious to attend in person at the start, or when a week goes sideways and the alternative is cancelling.