Evidence-informed.
Person-centred
Psychological support
About Us
Spencer Street Psychology is a purpose-built group practice bringing together experienced psychologists and mental health practitioners with diverse areas of expertise and ways of working.
How We Can Help
Explore our services +
Our Practitioners
Werner Briedenhann
Clinical Psychologist
Werner is a Clinical Psychologist with over a decade of experience across psychiatric hospitals, community mental health, substance rehabilitation and private practice. He works with a broad range of difficulties, from major life transitions to complex mental health concerns and trauma. Drawing on CBT, Gestalt, IFS, and Person-Centred approaches, Werner offers a thoughtful, collaborative space to understand patterns, build awareness, and find practical ways forward.
Availability
Accepting new clients
Please enquire
Amy Islip
Registered Clinical Counsellor & Relationship Therapist and Educator
Amy is a Registered Clinical Counsellor, Relationship Therapist and Educator who is passionate about helping people create more secure, loving and connected relationships, both with themselves and with others. Warm, humorous and deeply interested in relationship patterns, she works from trauma-informed, strengths-based and attachment-focused perspectives. Amy brings extensive experience in relational and communication skills, mindfulness and emotional intelligence, alongside a longstanding interest in philosophy, meditation, love and compassion practices.
Availability
Limited availability
Limited availability for couples (relationship counselling)
Dr David Eckel
Accredited Mental Health Social Worker
David is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with over 20 years of experience supporting adults, with particular expertise in PTSD and complex trauma, LGBTQIA+ mental health, and alcohol and other drug concerns. His work is strongly informed by trauma and attachment perspectives, and his PhD explored the relationship between Internal Family Systems Therapy and Attachment Theory. David is also a trained creative arts therapist and brings extensive experience in clinical supervision, teaching and training to his therapeutic work.
Availability
Waitlist
Feel free to enquire
Emily Li
Psychologist
Emily is a General Psychologist who offers a warm, compassionate and collaborative approach to therapy. She supports clients to explore how their experiences, relationships and personal history may have shaped current patterns, while developing greater insight and creating meaningful change. Emily tailors evidence-based approaches to each individual and is committed to trauma-informed, culturally responsive, neurodiversity-informed, gender-affirming and LGBTQIA-friendly practice. She also speaks conversational Mandarin Chinese.
Availability
Limited availability
Please enquire
Sean Cuthbert
Clinical Psychologist
Sean is a Clinical Psychologist with over 15 years of experience across community, public health and private practice settings. He works with adults experiencing the effects of trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, shame, addictive processes and relationship difficulties. Warm, down-to-earth, and collaborative, Sean draws on experiential approaches including IFS, EMDR, DBR, and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy to help people understand longstanding patterns, develop greater self-compassion, and create meaningful change. He has a particular interest in men’s mental health and is also an experienced clinical supervisor.
Availability
Enquiries via practitioner website
Please enquire
Dr Benjamin Shields
Clinical Psychologist
Dr Benjamin Shields is a clinical psychologist with 20 years of experience as a psychologist and over 25 years in the mental health field.
Availability
Not currently accepting new clients
No availability (on extended leave)
Latest Articles
By Amy Islip
September 16, 2026
- Themes: Relationships
We like to believe we leave our relationships at the door when we walk into work. That the person who shows up for the 9am meeting is a clean, professional version of us — competent, composed, unbothered by the messiness of home. This is just how it is. Work is work. Home is home.
But the reality is more complex — and far more revealing.
Because work is a relationship too. You have a boss, colleagues, clients, maybe people who report to you. Wherever there are people, there are the same underlying needs we bring to every relationship — to feel respected, valued, safe, and seen. And when those needs aren’t being met at work, the same parts of us that show up in our intimate relationships and friendships show up in the office. They don’t always know the difference between a partner and a manager. They just know when something feels unsafe.
By Amy Islip
September 2, 2026
- Themes: Relationships, Sex
Every long-term sex life has a shape to it — not a straight line, but something more like a set of hills. There are stretches where you can’t keep your hands off each other, and stretches where sex slips right down the priority list behind sleep, work deadlines and whoever’s turn it is to do school pickup. Both are normal. Neither one is the “real” version of your relationship.
Desire also isn’t one thing. It responds to stress, hormones, body image, how safe you feel with each other emotionally, how tired you are, and how much unresolved tension is sitting quietly in the background of your week. Two people can be deeply in love and still find themselves in a low patch, simply because life is too loud and demanding. That’s not a verdict on the relationship — it’s context.
August 23, 2026
- Themes: IFS, Sense of Self
Sometimes your inner world very, very crowded. Maybe you’re in a moment of anger, self-criticism, craving, replaying a conversation, worrying about tomorrow, and trying to work out what to do next. Like dominoes, one thought leads to another, and one feeling activates another. Before long, your whole system of parts can feel like it is in chaos.
This is a familiar experience in Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy. In IFS, we understand these experiences as times when parts have become blended with us.
By Amy Islip
August 19, 2026
- Themes: Relationships
We like to believe that people either change or they don’t — that it comes down to willpower, or love being strong enough, or finally “wanting it enough.” But the reality is more complex — and far more human than that.
Change in relationships rarely happens because someone decided to be different. It happens because something shifted in how safe, how seen, or how tired they became of the way things were. Understanding what actually drives change — in ourselves and in the people we love — changes how we wait for it, ask for it, and recognise it when it’s already happening.
By Amy Islip
August 5, 2026
- Themes: receiving help, Relationships
We like to believe that rest is something we earn — a reward waiting at the end of the to-do list, once everything is finished, once we’ve achieved enough. But the to-do list never actually ends. There’s always one more task, one more goal, one more version of “successful” just out of reach. And somewhere in the chasing, we forget the most basic truth of who we are.
We are human beings. Not human doings.
August 1, 2026
- Themes: IFS, receiving help, Sense of Self
Some children seem remarkably mature for their age. They are often described as: old souls, very mature for their age, or just “little adults.” They’re hyper-responsible, thoughtful, emotionally insightful, and dependable. Teachers admire them, and parents sing their praises them for being so easy to care for. They rarely cause trouble and often seem wiser than their years.
From the outside, this maturity appears to be a gift. However, from an Internal Family Systems (IFS) perspective, however, this is often a sign that childhood was curtailed or interrupted.
By Amy Islip
July 22, 2026
- Themes: emotions, Relationships
We often think of “managing our feelings” as something that involves controlling them — getting a grip, calming down, moving on. But the reality is more complex — and far more useful.
The way through a difficult feeling is not around it, but through it. That idea shows up again and again in the work I do with clients — the moment someone stops trying to argue their way out of an emotion and instead lets themselves actually feel it is almost always the moment something shifts. Either the feeling changes – or their relationship to the feeling does. Emotions aren’t static to be managed away. They’re information. And the way we resist them tends to cause far more suffering than the feelings themselves.
July 12, 2026
Grief is one of the most profound and universal experiences of being human. Yes, if you’re reading this you have either grieved or you will grieve. Yet, particularly in Western cultures, grief is often met with discomfort, avoidance, or an urgency to “move on.” Western culture values productivity, achievement, and emotional control, which leaves little room for the slow, unpredictable, and sacred process of grieving.
By Emily Li
May 13, 2026
- Themes: receiving help
The therapeutic relationship you have with your therapist is a bit enigmatic if we really think about it. Here is a person who you know very little about, yet you sit in a room with them, and open up to them about things you perhaps haven’t even told you parents, friends, partner or children. And, within the confines of the four walls of the therapeutic space, you are supported to peel back your layers, and look inward toward things that you have perhaps been avoiding, running from, or even living in denial about.
That’s a whole lot of trust to put in someone whom you know very little about on a personal level! No wonder why therapy can be a daunting experience for first-timers.
That’s why it is important to find a therapist who is right for you. I honestly believe that the best therapeutic work isn’t achieved with the most experienced or “best” (however that may be defined for you) therapist. Instead, the best work happens through a strong, trusting, and healthy therapeutic relationship.
Contact us
Phone
(03) 7038 0980
Fax
(03) 4050 7076
Practice address
Spencer Street Psychology
Office 101/393 Spencer Street
West Melbourne 3003
By Appointment Only
Access to the practice is by appointment only
Acknowledgment of Country
Spencer Street Psychology acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land on which we practice, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation, and pay our respects to their Elders past and present.