ABOUT KYLIE
My offer is built on a simple truth: we cannot change systems sustainably without also tending to the people leading the change.
For over twenty years, my focus has been on transformation, first within communities and institutions, and now in partnership with the practitioners who steward this vital work.
I bring together two worlds: the therapeutic depth of a PACFA-registered somatic psychotherapist and the practical reality of 20+ years in social innovation. I’ve worked inside government, led complex reform work, and felt the personal cost of doing high-stakes facilitation without the right support.
Now, I channel that experience into practice supervision creating the essential reflective space that turns struggle into strategic wisdom, so you can sustain your impact and yourself.
■
THE TURNING POINT
From reform fatigue to reflective practice
Years ago, I was deep in Victoria's family violence reforms, as a consultant and strategic adviser to government. I was leading policy, centring survivors' voices and managing a team. The work was significant, but came at a personal cost.
I was experiencing vicarious trauma. My nervous system had started to mirror the crisis I was worked with: I felt perpetually unsafe, disorganised, and vulnerable. My deep empathy - my greatest asset - was also activating my own history of sexual abuse.
I realised I was falling through the same gap that I’m now addressing through my offer. What I needed at the time, was a structured reflection space to gain perspective and separate the system's pain from my own.
And I started to see this same dynamic playing out at an institutional level. The systems I worked in were making "human-centred" decisions from a state of prolonged disconnection, a kind of collective numbness to the emotional realities of our work. We were trying to fix a system while operating from within its same dysfunctional pattern.
I wondered: How can we make emotionally intelligent decisions when we are disconnected from our own emotions somatic intelligence?
That question led me to study process-oriented psychology where I learned that healing dissociation - in ourselves and our systems - doesn't come from thinking harder. It comes from relearning how to safely feel and interpret the intelligence of our bodies as information about what needs to change.
It became clear: our most strategic intervention is to support our capacity to be somatically present, aware, and resilient amidst chaos and complexity.
HOW WE SUSTAIN CHANGE AND OURSELVES
The work of changing systems is ultimately human work. It asks not just for our strategies, but for our sustained passion, clarity, and resilience.
My role is to provide a structured, reflective space - combining psychological depth with the practical realities of transformation work - so you can reconnect to your purpose, navigate complexity with resilience, and achieve impact without sacrificing your well-being.
A three phase process for working together:
Creating the container - We establish a confidential space where stress becomes informative, not overwhelming. We slow the urgent to make patterns visible. This is where you exhale and are truly heard.
Finding the signal - Working with process oriented psychology, we distinguish your core patterns from the chaos. We decode what's activating you, how power is operating, and what remains unspoken. Clarity emerges from confusion.
Integrating Insight - Understanding moves from concept to lived capacity. You learn to respond from resourced presence, not react from depletion. This is where insight becomes grounded, skillful action.
TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
My approach is grounded in formal training and two decades of application (including 6 years of therapeutic work):
Professional training in process-oriented psychotherapy (ANZPOP)
Deep democracy (Level 3), conflict resolution and mediation specialist training
Advanced diplomas in group facilitation and community development
Graduate and post graduate studies in social science, participatory action research, strategic planning and placemaking
Two decades of hands-on experience in social innovation, place based partnerships, community-led innovation, strategic engagement, disaster recovery and government reform
I am a licensed somatic psychotherapist with PACFA and adhere to their strict code of ethics.
However, the true measure of this work really is in the sustained capacity it builds in others. At my 50th birthday, people I'd mentored years ago shared that they still ask themselves 'what would Kylie do?' when facing complex situations. They weren't remembering a framework, but a capacity to stay grounded in chaos and an inner trust that conflict and uncertainty is not something to fear, but to learn from.
I know that the quality of a project's outcomes are inseparable from the wellbeing and awareness of the people leading it. My work is to strengthen that vital connection.
