Counselling that travels: telehealth across Australia
Some of the most important conversations I’ve had as a counsellor have happened with someone eight hundred kilometres away.
A teacher in a regional town where the nearest counsellor is booked out for three months. A student in a share house in Melbourne who could never quite say to a housemate, “I’m not okay.” A man in Far North Queensland on a two-and-one roster, for whom the only quiet hour in the week is a Tuesday night with a laptop. They didn’t need to be in the room. They needed the room to come to them.
The Coolum Institute opened its doors this week on the Sunshine Coast, and I’m proud of the space — a beautiful Counselling Lounge with a glass wall onto a rooftop deck and the ocean beyond it. But the practice was never meant to stop at the door. From day one, telehealth is a full part of what I offer, not a fallback.
The same work, on a screen
People sometimes assume that experiential, action-based counselling — the psychodrama-informed way I work — can’t survive a video call. That it needs a room, and floor space, and other bodies.
It doesn’t. Some of it changes shape, and some of it gets better.
On a screen we still do the thing that matters most: we stop only talking about a problem and start working with it. I’ll ask you to set out the people or pressures in your life using whatever’s on your desk — a mug, a stapler, a phone — and we look at the pattern from the outside. We rehearse the difficult conversation before you have it. We find the voice of the part of you that’s exhausted and let it speak for a change. I’ve watched people do the deepest work of their year from a kitchen table, and be quietly glad they could close the laptop and make a cup of tea in their own home afterwards.
For some clients, distance is actually the permission. It’s easier to begin when you’re not going to run into your counsellor at the local supermarket.
Who this suits
Telehealth is a good fit if:
- You live somewhere counselling is hard to get — regional Queensland, interstate, a town with a waiting list.
- Your week doesn’t leave room to drive anywhere. Shift work, FIFO, teaching, caring for someone.
- You’re an international student or a new arrival, and you’d rather work with someone who already understands that world. I spent twenty-five years in it.
- You want an affirming space as an LGBTIQA+ person and there isn’t one nearby.
- You started something with me in Coolum and then life moved you. Sessions don’t have to stop because you did.
It suits most of the things I work with: burnout and overwhelm, the big transitions, trauma, recovery from addiction, and the general project of doing your inner work as an adult. There are a few situations where in-person or a different kind of service is the safer choice, and I’ll tell you honestly in our first conversation if I think that’s the case.
How it works
Sessions run on Zoom, fifty minutes, from wherever you have a private space and a reasonable connection. Headphones help. A closed door helps more. Before we start I’ll send you the same intake and consent forms as in-room clients, and we’ll talk through what to do if the connection drops or if a session brings up more than expected — the small practical things that make online work feel safe.
Sessions are $150, with telehealth and in-room priced the same. I invoice after each session and you pay online.
Evening and Saturday slots are available for people whose working week doesn’t stretch.
The first step is small
Whether you’re in Coolum or Cairns, the first step is the same: a free, no-pressure fifteen-minute conversation to see whether we’re a good fit. No forms, no commitment — just a chat.
→ Book a free 15-minute consult
And if, while you read this, someone came to mind — the friend who’s a long way from home, the colleague who keeps saying they’ll get around to it — send them this. That’s how most people find their way here.
Dr Patrick Pheasant is Founder & Principal Counsellor of The Coolum Institute at Coolum Beach, Queensland — ACA Registered Counsellor and PACFA Certified Practising Counsellor. He works with clients in person and by telehealth across Australia.
