About me

I am passionate about mental health and its potential to promote social justice. Throughout my career, I have lived and worked in many countries trying to increase awareness and access to mental health services. I have led community-based Mental Health projects with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) in emergency areas in Nigeria, Yemen and Libya. I have also provided consulting services to companies in Peru and Spain to address mental health in the workplace.

I am now permanently based in Sydney and work as a private practitioner and as a Clinical Lead for headspace, designing mental health strategies for communities affected by suicide, natural disasters and other large-scale events.

I am a curious person always looking for new things to learn. I love the ocean, so when I’m not working, I enjoy ocean swimming, freediving and spending time in the water. I am also a food nerd and like baking sourdough bread, making coffee, and cooking large meals for my family and friends.  

My qualifications

  • Master of General Healthcare Psychology, European University of Madrid, Spain

  • Master’s in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain

  • Bachelor of Psychology (Major in Clinical Psychology), Pontifical Catholic University, Peru

 My professional memberships

  • Registered Psychologist in the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency – PSY0002712145

  • Registered in the Official College of Psychology of Madrid – M-33187

  • Registered in the Psychology Board of Peru – 42954

My therapeutic approach

Psychologists have different ways of working, based on their training, their experience and their personality. There are many theoretical approaches on how to provide therapy.  Different approaches and therapists work better for different personality styles and different mental health difficulties. One of the best predictors of positive outcomes is the therapeutic relationship, so it is important to choose someone you trust and feel comfortable with. When I start a process, I always suggest 4 or 5 sessions to properly understand why the client is coming to see me, and so that we can both assess whether my style is the one that suits them best. Below I briefly list the frameworks that inform my work.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Psychodynamic models propose that we all have thoughts, desires and memories that we are not always aware of. These unconscious elements influence the way we behave and relate to others. I have been trained in a contemporary school of psychodynamic psychotherapy that believes that our significant relationships largely define who we are. It is in the context of significant relationships that we become unwell, and therefore, it is through significant relationships that we can get better.

Want to know more about it? You can read this article by Jonathan Shedler.

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR proposes that trauma and other mental health struggles are disorders of memory. When we experience an event that is too intense, our mind cannot process it and it continues to carry a big emotional weight in the present. EMDR has developed a procedure to help the mind process difficult memories so they can be remembered without too much distress. It does that by encouraging clients to briefly focus on the memory whilst also focusing on an external stimulus (for example following the therapist’s fingers with their eyes, listening to certain sounds or tapping on their bodies). EMDR does not require a detailed explanation of the difficult event which helps prevent people from getting constantly triggered during a session. EMDR has been widely used to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and it is showing promising results for other conditions such as anxiety and depression.

Want to know more about it? You can check the EMDR Association website.