Justine Mrkusic

Understanding why we do the things we do can change the way we see ourselves. When we replace “What’s wrong with me?” with “What’s happened, and how did I learn to cope?”, there’s often much more room for change.

Therapy works best when we work things out together. I might bring psychological knowledge and experience, but you are the expert on you.

Being human is complicated, and none of us has it completely figured out. Being able to laugh at some of the absurdity along the way definitely helps.

I have almost 20 years’ experience working as a clinical psychologist and couples therapist across private practice, public mental health, forensic and correctional services, perinatal mental health and multidisciplinary clinical settings in both Australia and South Africa.

I began my career in South Africa, working across hospital psychiatric services, child psychiatry and forensic/correctional settings before establishing a private practice in Johannesburg. After moving to Australia in 2017, I established my private practice in Geelong in 2018. I have also worked as a Senior Clinical Psychologist within Barwon Health’s specialist Trauma and Personality Disorders Program.

Over the years I have worked with individuals, couples and families experiencing everything from anxiety, depression and difficult life transitions through to complex trauma, personality difficulties, neurodivergence and longstanding relationship patterns that have been hard to understand or change.

My approach is collaborative, evidence-based and strongly relationship-focused. Rather than simply treating a diagnosis, I’m interested in understanding the whole person: what has happened to you, how you have learned to adapt, what is happening in your life now, and what might help things change. I particularly enjoy working with people whose experiences don’t fit neatly into a single diagnostic box, and helping them understand how the different pieces of their story fit together. I provide neurodiversity-affirming care and tailor therapy to the individual rather than assuming that one approach will suit everyone. I work integratively rather than assuming that one type of therapy suits everyone. Together, we’ll build an understanding of what is happening for you and tailor therapy to your needs, preferences and goals.

In my work with couples I focus on helping partners understand the patterns that have developed in their relationship and why they might find themselves having the same difficult interactions despite genuinely wanting things to be different. Couples that come to see me may come to therapy feeling emotionally disconnected, struggling with communication or recurring conflict, or trying to navigate difficulties with trust, intimacy or a significant life transition. My approach is less about deciding who is right or wrong and more about helping each person understand their own and their partner’s responses, including the attachment needs, emotions and experiences that may sit underneath them. Together, we work towards changing unhelpful relationship patterns, improving communication and rebuilding a sense of connection and understanding.

• Acute stress and traumatic experiences
• ADHD
• Adjusting to a new country and culture
• Adjustments to stressful life changes
• Anger and difficulties managing anger
• Anorexia
• Anxiety and excessive worry
• Autism and AuDHD
• Binge eating disorder
• Bulimia
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder
• Body image
• Borderline Personality Disorder and other personality-related difficulties
• Burnout
• Carer stress and support
• Childhood trauma
• Chronic illness and pain
• Communication, boundaries and assertiveness
• Complex trauma and complex PTSD
• Co-parenting
• Couples counselling and relationship therapy
• Depression and low mood
• Distress intolerance and emotional dysregulation
• Drug and alcohol-related difficulties
• Emotional difficulties
• Family relationship difficulties
• Family violence and its psychological impact
• Fertility and fertility-related difficulties
• Generalised anxiety
• Grief, loss and bereavement
• Health anxiety
• Identity and self-esteem difficulties
• Impulse control
• Internet and game addiction
• Learning difficulties
• Life changes and transitions
• Living with cancer and other serious health conditions
• Medically unexplained / psychosomatic illness
• Neurodivergence
• Obsessions and compulsions
• Panic attacks
• Parenting
• People from immigrant, asylum seeker and refugee backgrounds
• Perfectionism and self-criticism
• Personal growth and wellbeing
• Phobias and fears
• Porn addiction
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Pregnancy, pre- and postnatal mental health difficulties
• Relationship patterns and interpersonal difficulties
• Sexual assault
• Sexuality
• Sleep difficulties
• Social anxiety and social phobia
• Stress
• Study, work and career-related difficulties
• Terminal illness and end-of-life issues
• Trauma
• Vicarious trauma
• Women’s health issues

Depending on my client’s needs and preferences I use a variety of evidence-based approaches including:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Attachment-based and attachment-informed therapy
• Chair Work
• Circle of Security
• Client-Centred Therapy
• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
• Compassion-based approaches
• Couples counselling
• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)-informed therapy
• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)
• Gottman based treatment for couples
• Imagery Rescripting
• Imago based therapy for couples
• Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT)
• Mindfulness-based approaches
• Motivational Interviewing
• Narrative Therapy
• Neurodiversity-affirming approaches
• Positive Psychology
• Psychodynamic psychotherapy
• Single-session counselling
• Solution-Focused Therapy
• Strengths-based approaches
• Systemic Therapy
• Systemic Couples Therapy
• Trauma-informed therapy