Our Team of Specialists
-
Lettitia is a psychologist and Board Approved Supervisor with over 20 years of clinical experience in perinatal mental health and other areas of adult mental health including anxiety, depression, life transition and adjustment. She has a special interest in working with adults who have a history of complex trauma and helping them transition and navigate the complexities inherent in the adjustment to parenthood.
SUPERVISION, THERAPY
-
Lettitia is highly skilled in supporting adults with a complex trauma history during the perinatal period. She has a deep understanding of the challenges and adjustments involved in transitioning to parenthood. With experience in both the public (Mother-baby residential unit) and private sectors, Lettitia has been in private practice since 2014. In addition to her expertise in working with perinatal populations with complex trauma histories, she has a special interest in supporting parents who have experienced birth-related trauma and loss.
Lettitia worked at the Gidget Foundation Australia from its inception in 2013 until 2024, where she held both client-facing and clinical supervisory roles. This involved delivering education and training to clinicians in the perinatal space.
Lettitia’s therapeutic approach is multimodal and integrative. While she has a background in modern psychodynamic approaches, she also incorporates ACT, DBT, mindfulness, solution-focused techniques, and trauma-informed interventions, including Schema Therapy and EMDR.
She uses a biopsychosocial approach to assessment and collaborates closely with her clients and their health professional networks to ensure the best possible outcomes.
SUPERVISION, THERAPY, TRAINING, MEDIA
Justine Adler
Justine is a highly experienced, warm and insightful Clinical Psychologist with over 25 years of practice, with a special interest in perinatal mental health. In addition to a long-standing private practice in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, she has worked at Karitane Parenting Centre and St John of God Private Hospital. She has also been a Clinical Supervisor at Gidget Foundation Australia. She is also a Registered Circle of Security Parent Educator and group facilitator.
-
Justine is also a board-approved supervisor with a wealth of experience supporting clinicians across various disciplines. Justine has been instrumental in developing and supervising a perinatal mental health focused workplace development program. She has also regularly run relevant seminars and trainings. As well she offers clinical supervision individually and groups. She also provides seminars and training to clinicians and other disciplines.
Justine is passionate about perinatal mental health, being aware of the importance of addressing concerns during this critical period. She offers an individualised and integrative approach, drawing on a wide range of psychological approaches. These include Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Interpersonal Psychotherapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Schema Therapy, Mindfulness Based Therapies, and EMDR.
Justine also has a particular interest in somatic therapy, currently undertaking training in Hakomi Therapy. She always works within an attachment framework and is trauma informed. It is important for Justine that the therapeutic relationship is collaborative, safe and respectful. Justine is interested in supporting clients with a range of concerns relating to the perinatal period. She can be contacted to discuss if she might be the right fit for you.
-
Chris Barnes is a Clinical Psychologist and Board Approved Supervisor with over 30 years of professional insight and expertise. Her approach is process driven, mindful and compassion-based, with a particular interest in attachment, grief and loss, perinatal mental health aligning with psychodynamic, trauma-informed and feminist frameworks.
SUPERVISION, TRAINING, THERAPY, MEDIA
-
Chris has always had an affinity for the well-being of mothers and babies. Her career began with a focus on families, adoption, foster care and women’s health. She naturally moved into the perinatal space, running year-long psychotherapy groups with Norma Tracey and completing an Infant & Newborn Observation Study with the Sydney Institute of Psychiatry.
In 2014, Chris joined the team at Gidget Foundation Australia (GFA) as one of their first perinatal therapists. She supported 150 clinicians over her 10-year tenure at GFA. Leading the Clinical Team, she created supervision and professional development programs and oversaw clinical content, recruitment and training, education and Australia-wide advocacy and media.
Creating a safe, accepting, reflective and collaborative environment is her happy place. Chris loves to see ‘lightbulb moments’, with supervisees enjoying the perinatal space and relishing the therapist-learning journey. She believes working with families is an essential, unique, rewarding and special area of psychology – one that is so important to focus on as we raise the next generation of humans. Parenthood can be one of the hardest times in a person’s life and Chris believes compassionate support can be life changing.
Chris is offering online and in-person Supervision for students, psychology registrars and experienced perinatal clinicians, organisations and groups. Her areas of special interest include: grief and loss, adoption, perinatal mental health, birth-related trauma, parent-infant relationships and gender-diverse families.
Chris is also an APS Early Career Mentor for Psychologists, Fellow of the APS Clinical College, member of AAIMH and MARCE and is currently on the Clinical Advisory Committee for Birth Trauma Australia. She calls Sydney home and shares it with her partner and two cheeky and loving Burmese cats!
SUPERVISION
Annie Hartley
Annie Hartley is a Psychologist, Board Approved Supervisor and SIRA Authorised practitioner with over 30 years clinical experience, having worked within not for profit, government, community and private work sectors, as well as in private practice, management and consultancy roles. Starting her career in early intervention and child and family therapy, she has then moved through to working with adolescents, adults in a private setting, as well as extensive work in crisis intervention, sexual assault and women’s health. She has had the opportunity to work as a therapist, supervisor, mentor and director. In recent years her focus has been providing individual and group supervision, and undertaking psychological assessments in a medico-legal setting.
-
Annie has particular interest in working with clients and clinicians in the perinatal space. She recognises the complexity of this profound life stage encompassing psychological, social, medical and biological factors. Through her work and her own professional development, theoretical frameworks that most resonate with Annie include psychodynamic, attachment and object relations theories, and she utilises a range of therapeutic techniques, guided by the client or clinician, which may draw from Schema, CBT, ACT and Systemic therapies.
In the role of supervisor, specialising in perinatal mental health, her goal is to work in collaboration with the clinician, in a confidential, reflective space, where the clinician is able to explore any aspect of their clinical practice. Annie works to provide an environment for the clinician to explore challenges, celebrate achievements, and seek a deeper understanding of why we, and our clients, think and act the way we do in our interpersonal relationships, as mirrored in the therapeutic setting. Her approach is to guide, explore, and support, rather than to direct and instruct.
Annie is currently available for individual and group supervision sessions. Additionally, having worked with in a medico-legal setting, she also provides practical small group and individual sessions exploring the legal considerations relating to note taking, report writing, and subpoenas, for clinicians working in private practice.