Welcome to Macquarie Cottage Counselling

Counselling Services

At Macquarie Cottage we provide counselling and support services to the wider community regardless of religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, lifestyle choice, cultural background or economic circumstance. 

We meet with individuals, couples, families, children and young people, parents, older people, and grandparents. 

Our counsellors have experience working with circumstances such as relationship issues, the impacts of family and domestic violence, trauma, physical and mental health concerns, depression, grief and loss, stress and anxiety, identity formation, life transitions, and emotional regulation.

Our counsellors work collaboratively with clients to develop personalised treatment plans that address their unique needs and goals.

Appointments & Fees

We are a collective of counsellors, each providing an individual service. This means making and changing appointments, and negotiating fees are done with your particular counsellor.

When you get in touch with Macquarie Cottage, you can request a particular counsellor to meet with (subject to their availability), or we will allocate one we think is suited to your needs.

Most of our counsellors have a starting rate of $100 for individuals, and also offer concession rates. Please check fees with your counsellor.

If you are ready to make an appointment, contact us using our form.

Therepeutic Plans

Our social worker, Heath, offers 3 types of therepeutic plans. All of these plans are client-focused, strengths-based, and trauma-informed. They can be done as a standalone intervention, or as part of ongoing counselling. Once established, therepeutic plans are generally reviewed monthly.

Recovery Plan
These help you set realistic goals to support your recovery journey, including after hospitalisation for mental health or substance use. It helps you gain insight in where you want your future to go, and sets out the crucial foundational steps to help you reach your goals.

Wellness Plan
These aim to assist you in mapping out what can keep your overall wellbeing in a place that is just right for you. It focuses on promoting physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual wellbeing. It includes strategies on increasing wellbeing, and reducing barriers to wellbeing. It builds on the strengths and practices you already have.

Safety Plan
A safety plan is for when your safety is a concern or at risk.  This includes situations involving domestic and family violence, suicidal thoughts, mental health crises, or substance use. 
The safety plan includes mapping out the risks to the individual and others involved, reducing the severity of these risks, setting up safe places to go when a risky situation occurs, looking at the appropriate supports to be involved, and the right time to use the safety plan. 

Collaborative and Narratively Informed Practice Interest Group

For the past 5 years Ian with the support of Heath has been a part of bringing together like-minded practitioners and beginning practitioners together to gain additional supports, extend onto practice ideas and help break the sense of isolation workers can experience when working within our present 

political contexts in the support of people wishing to make change in their lives. During this time the group has been engaged in some very interesting conversations and sharing of knowledge, resources and skills that have indeed given people a sense of connection and support. 

Over the 32 years of providing Clinical Supervisions with workers and experiencing some great one-on-one conversations that would have similar themes to them and I started to imagine what it might be like to bring workers together and increase the witnessing  circle of these conversations? 

There are several practitioners known to us who are not able to meet face to face due to distance and work constraints, and we wanted to include these practitioners into conversations.  

What is hoped for is to support workers in: 

Developing a solid reflective practice individually and within a community, and build worker relations. 

To extend theory/ ideas into lived practice. 

To be able to experiment and try approaches that are more collaborate with clients. 

To experience an environment of discovery and curiosity. 

To pass on knowledge and shared wisdoms from our learned practice. 

And importantly, break the isolation many workers experience working within the human services/ 

therapeutic sector.

The group meets bi-monthly with Ian providing reflective papers prior to our meetings drawn from previous conversations in the group and from supervisions. Attendance can also go toward any PD points and Supervision Hours needed for your registrations.  

The cost is $60.00 per person for the 1.5 hours meeting from 4pm till 5.30pm.  Often some of us will then have a meal together at a local venue.  

If you are interested in joining, please contact using our email [email protected] Or Ian’s 

mobile 0468 940 217 and leave a message.