Alison Jermey

Profile photo of Alison Jermey, clinical psychologist in Melbourne at Cova Psychology.
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Alison Jermey

“I take a thoughtful, down-to-earth approach to therapy, creating a space where you can slow things down, reflect, and talk things through without judgement. Using evidence-based frameworks, I support people to better understand themselves, develop effective coping strategies, and move toward changes that feel meaningful and sustainable.”

AREAS OF EXPERIENCE

I work with adults experiencing a wide range of mental health concerns. I commonly support people with:

  • Anxiety: Helping individuals manage persistent worry, panic symptoms, and anxiety that impacts daily life, using practical, evidence-based strategies.
  • Depression: Supporting people experiencing low mood, hopelessness, loss of motivation, and disconnection, while rebuilding routine, meaning, and engagement with life.
  • Neurodivergence (including ADHD and ASD): Assisting neurodivergent adults to better understand their needs, reduce overwhelm and burnout, navigate work/relationships, and develop strategies that fit their brain and context.
  • Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD): Supporting people experiencing intrusive thoughts and compulsions, with a focus on reducing distress and strengthening flexible, values-based responding.
  • Bipolar disorder: Helping people make sense of mood shifts, strengthen stability, and develop practical supports and routines that reduce risk and improve quality of life.
  • Personality-related difficulties: Working with long-standing patterns in emotions, relationships, self-image, and coping, with an emphasis on insight, stability, and building more secure ways of relating to self and others.
  • Trauma (including PTSD and complex trauma): Supporting recovery from traumatic experiences, including the impacts on safety, trust, emotion regulation, and the nervous system, while strengthening agency and self-compassion.
  • Grief and loss: Helping people navigate bereavement and other forms of loss, including complicated grief, identity shifts, and the emotional aftershocks of change.
  • Relationship challenges: Supporting individuals experiencing conflict, ruptures in trust, attachment-related difficulties, boundary challenges, or repeated relational patterns they want to understand and shift.
  • Significant life transitions: Assisting people through major changes (work, study, health, family, separation, relocation, caregiving), including adjustment stress and identity shifts.

BACKGROUND

I came to psychology later in life, following many years working as a lawyer in both public and private practice. Alongside my legal career, I volunteered for several years as a crisis counsellor, where I discovered a strong interest in helping people struggling with mental health. This ultimately led me to retrain as a psychologist.

I have a particular interest in the relationship between mental and physical health, including chronic illness and persistent pain. My experience working in a chronic pain clinic has shaped my understanding of how pain affects all aspects of life, and I support clients to develop practical strategies that help them manage pain while maintaining wellbeing and quality of life.

Outside of work, I enjoy reading fiction, exploring new creative hobbies, and spending time with family and friends.

THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES

I don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to therapy; instead, I work in a flexible, creative, and neuro-affirming way, adapting evidence-based therapies to suit each person’s needs, strengths, and circumstances.

  • Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT): Identifying unhelpful thought and behaviour patterns and building practical strategies to reduce symptoms and support day-to-day functioning.
  • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Supporting people to relate differently to difficult thoughts and feelings, clarify values, and take meaningful action even when life feels hard.
  • Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): Building skills in emotion regulation, distress tolerance, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness, especially when feelings are intense or overwhelming.
  • Interpersonal Therapy (IPT): Focusing on relationships and communication patterns, and how life events, role changes, grief, and conflict can contribute to mood difficulties.
  • Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Chronic Pain (MBCT-CP): Combining mindfulness and cognitive strategies to reduce the struggle with pain, support pacing, and improve quality of life and emotional wellbeing.
  • Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for PTSD: A structured trauma therapy that supports recovery by working with trauma-related beliefs and reducing the ongoing impact of the traumatic experience.
  • Schema Therapy: Exploring patterns that shape emotions, behaviour, and relationships, and working to shift the underlying beliefs and coping responses that keep them going.

QUALIFICATIONS

  • Master of Clinical Psychology (LaTrobe)
  • Graduate Diploma in Psychology Advanced (Monash)
  • Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Monash)


PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIP

  • Registered Psychologist (Clinical) with Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
  • Member of the Australian Psychological Society (MAPS)