Grace Lee – Counsellor and Psychotherapist

Qualifications:

BSc (Hons) Physiology. University of London
Master of Counselling and Psychotherapy  (Cairnmillar Institute)

PACFA Reg. 22637

As a counsellor and psychotherapist I spend my time with people who often have anxiety or depression, or who may feel not quite in step with the rest of the world. I listen carefully to my clients, I am non-judgmental and accept each individual I meet as a person with their own needs.

I can help you to explore your life; to make sense of the things that have happened to you and to build a brighter, more confident and happier future.

I can offer a number of approaches to therapy depending on the issues you wish to address and how we best feel we can work together.

I work with people of all ages from 18 upwards, from various walks of life, and at different stages in their life. For some they may be struggling with issues at work or trying to find a job and facing repeated rejections. They may be having problems at home, having difficulties with a relationship, or they may have recently been bereaved.

Whatever the struggle or crisis, I will listen to you, and work with you to understand what all this means to you and then help you to develop skills to see things in a more useful way, so reducing the feelings of agitation or despair

I am transgender. I experience the challenges and difficulties of living in a society that expects us all to conform to a set of norms that just don’t work for me. I know of many others who feel different about themselves and their sense of gender identity means they often feel rejected and depressed. I work with transgender and gender diverse clients to help them explore and understand their sense of identity. I work with transgender clients at all stages of the identity journey from initial exploration, through transition (if that is their desire), to supporting them in life after transition.

As part of my Masters of Counselling studies I carried out a research project on the ways in which transgender people cope with coming out to their family and friends. I hope this research will prove useful to other counsellors as well as trans and gender diverse people in understanding how to come out and minimise some of the stresses associated with those experiences. You can download a copy of my thesis here.

“I know I’m not a man – about that much I am very clear, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not a woman either, at least not according to a lot of people’s rules on this sort of thing. The trouble is we’re living in a world that insists we be one or the other – a world that doesn’t bother to tell us exactly what one or the other is.”

Kate Bornstein (1994). Gender Outlaw: On men, women and the rest of us.