Dr Sarah-Jane Dempsey

Clinical Psychologist & Psychodynamic Psychotherapist

Dr Sarah-Jane Dempsey

Clinical Psychologist & Psychodynamic Psychotherapist

Psychological Services

Dr Sarah-Jane Dempsey provides psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults, adolescents (15+) and couples, offering a safe, confidential, and non-judgemental space to explore your inner world. Therapy provides an opportunity to reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and relationships, helping you understand how past experiences, often outside conscious awareness, shape the way you live and connect today. Through this process, insight grows, patterns can shift, and a sense of freedom and choice can emerge. Given the depth of this work, Dr Sarah-Jane offers medium to long term therapy, with an option for shorter term work where appropriate. Sessions are available in person in Richmond, online, or via telephone.

Psychological Services

Dr Sarah-Jane provides psychodynamic psychotherapy for adults, adolescents (15+) and couples, offering a safe, confidential, and non-judgemental space to explore your inner world. Therapy provides an opportunity to reflect on your thoughts, emotions, and relationships, helping you understand how past experiences, often outside conscious awareness, shape the way you live and connect today. Through this process, insight grows, patterns can shift, and a sense of freedom and choice can emerge. Given the depth of this work, Dr Sarah-Jane  offers medium to long term therapy, with an option for shorter term work where appropriate. Sessions are available in person in Richmond, online, or via telephone.

Adults

Adults come to therapy for many reasons, including:

 

  • Anxiety, depression, stress, or low self-esteem

  • Challenges in relationships, intimacy, or sexuality

  • Life transitions such as parenthood, career changes, or loss

  • Recurrent patterns of self-sabotage or dissatisfaction

  • Questions of identity, direction, and personal growth

  • Trauma, grief, or health-related issues
     

For many, therapy becomes not only a response to difficulty, but also a place of growth — a space to imagine new possibilities, strengthen resilience, and live with greater ease and authenticity.

Adolescents

Adolescents may engage in therapy to:

 

  • Explore anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, or disordered eating
  • Navigate family or peer relationship difficulties
  • Manage school stress, motivation, or neurodivergence
  • Cope with trauma, loss, or challenging life events
  • Develop self-understanding and resilience during a time of transition
     

Therapy offers a supportive environment where adolescents can understand themselves, build resilience, and discover strategies for navigating the challenges of growing up.

Couples

Couples often enter into therapy to:

 

  • Improve communication and rebuild trust
  • Deepen intimacy, connection, and empathy
  • Navigate sexual difficulties
  • Understand recurring conflicts or cycles of misunderstanding
  • Work through challenges such as parenting, illness, or loss
  • Explore separation with clarity and care

 

Couples therapy offers a safe space to slow down, reflect, and listen — to ourselves and to one another. It is an opportunity to uncover the patterns that keep partners stuck and to find new ways of relating.

Areas of Focus

Some of the key areas Dr Sarah-Jane works with include:

  • Anxiety

  • Depression

  • Stress and sleep difficulties

  • Trauma

  • Grief and loss

  • Relationship and intimacy issues

  • Neurodivergence

  • OCD

  • Bipolar Disorder

  • Self-esteem and identity challenges

  • Family of origin and background issues

  • Sexual and emotional abuse

  • Life adjustment and career challenges

  • Social isolation or loneliness

  • Disordered eating

  • Personality and behavioural concerns

Clinical Supervision

Dr Sarah-Jane provides individual clinical supervision for both new and experienced psychotherapists. She is a AHPRA Board Approved Supervisor. Supervision is psychodynamically oriented, confidential, and attentive to the full experience of the supervisee. Sessions explore not only the content of therapy, but also the thoughts, feelings, and responses that arise in the therapist, fostering insight, reflection, and professional growth.