Frequently Asked Questions

We see individuals, couples, and relationships of three or more people. The team is a mix of psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, a mental health nurse and an accredited mental health social worker, so the right fit depends partly on what you're coming in for and partly on how you'd like to fund it.

What we offer:

• Individual therapy

• Relationship therapy, including for non-monogamous and multi-partner relationships

• Sex therapy (talk-based only)

• Trauma therapy, including EMDR

• Medicare-rebated sessions with our psychologist or mental health social worker, if you have a Mental Health Care Plan

• Integration and harm-reduction support for people using, or thinking about, medicine-assisted treatment

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) counselling for workplaces

If you're not sure which of these you need, that's fine — tell us what's going on when you enquire and we'll suggest where to start.

Send an enquiry through the website, or call us during business hours. We usually reply within one business day.

In that first reply we'll suggest one or two therapists whose background suits what you've described, and send their next available times. You can book a first session straight away, or start with a free 15-minute phone call with the therapist if you'd like to check fit first — plenty of people do.

Yes. Every new client can book a free 15-minute call with a prospective therapist before committing to a full session. Mention it when you enquire and we'll send you times for the call rather than for a session.

No. You can book directly without a referral.

The one exception is Medicare. To claim a Medicare rebate you'll need a Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, psychiatrist or paediatrician before your first rebated session. A standard GP appointment is usually enough for them to assess you and write the plan. Once you have it, email it to us before your first session so we can set up the claim.

If you're an NDIS participant, send us your plan manager's details and we'll arrange invoicing with them.

It depends on the therapist. Some can see new clients within a week or two; others have a waitlist, and we'll tell you roughly how many weeks it is rather than leaving it vague.

If the therapist you want has a long wait, we'll usually offer two options side by side: joining their waitlist, or a fit call with someone who can see you sooner.

If something is time-sensitive for you, please say so in your enquiry so we can factor it in when we offer times.

Most people aren't sure when they first get in touch, so you don't need to work it out before you enquire. Describe what's happening in your own words — a couple of sentences is plenty — and we'll suggest a therapist whose training fits.

A 15-minute fit call is also a good way to talk it through with the therapist directly. The focus of therapy often shifts over the first few sessions anyway, and that's normal.

We're an outpatient practice. We don't provide crisis support, emergency care or after-hours sessions, so if that's what you need right now, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or call 000.

We'll also tell you plainly if what you're looking for is outside what our team is trained in. In that case we'll point you to a service that is a better match, rather than booking you in with someone who isn't the right fit. Our Support Hotlines page lists 24/7 crisis contacts.

Individual sessions (50 minutes) are priced by your therapist's registration:

• $235 — counsellors, psychotherapists, sex therapists and our mental health nurse

• $255 — our accredited mental health social worker

• $265 — our psychologist

• $285 — our clinical psychologist, who is currently on leave and not taking new clients

Relationship sessions are $355 for two people (65 minutes) and $410 for three or more people (75 minutes).

In-person sessions also have a $20 in-person fee.

Concession rates are available for Health Care Card holders and for financial hardship — let us know when you enquire. The full breakdown is on our Fees page.

With a valid Mental Health Care Plan, sessions with our psychologist or our accredited mental health social worker attract a Medicare rebate. You pay the full fee on the day, we lodge the claim for you, and Medicare pays the rebate into your nominated bank account, usually within a day or two.

Per session, that works out to:

• Psychologist ($265): $101.55 back, so about $163.45 out of pocket

• Accredited mental health social worker ($255): $89.50 back, so about $165.50 out of pocket

• Clinical psychologist ($285): $149.05 back, so about $135.95 out of pocket — existing clients only while our clinical psychologist is on leave

Under Better Access you can claim up to 10 individual sessions per calendar year. Your GP can confirm your eligibility.

Yes. Medicare only rebates psychology and mental health social work sessions when there's a current Mental Health Care Plan from your GP, psychiatrist or paediatrician.

If you don't have one yet, book a longer appointment with your GP and tell them you'd like to talk about your mental health — that gives them time to assess you and write the plan. Once you have it, forward it to us and we'll take it from there.

Sessions with our counsellors, psychotherapists, sex therapists and mental health nurse aren't covered by Medicare. Some private health funds do cover them (see below).

Please let us know as soon as it does. We have a concession rate for Health Care Card holders and for financial hardship, and it's much easier to sort out before invoices start to build up than after.

Yes. We work with NDIS participants whose plans include improved daily living or improved health and wellbeing supports. Send us your plan details and your plan manager's or support coordinator's contact, and we'll set up invoicing with them directly.

Some private health funds rebate counselling or psychology sessions, depending on your level of cover. Because this varies a lot between funds and policies, the quickest way to find out is to call your fund and ask whether your extras cover the provider type you're booking with (for example, a PACFA-registered counsellor or an AHPRA-registered psychologist).

We ask for as much notice as you can give, because a cancelled spot can usually go to someone on the waitlist.

• More than 48 hours' notice: no charge

• 24 to 48 hours: 50% of the session fee

• Less than 24 hours, or not attending: the full fee

You can let us know by phone, SMS or email. If something unexpected happens, get in touch anyway — we look at emergencies case by case.

We invoice after each session, and payment is due before your next one. Most clients save a card to their client profile so it's charged automatically after each session. If you'd rather not store a card, we'll email the invoice with a payment link and BPAY details instead.

If paying is getting difficult, please contact the admin team early. We'd rather work out a plan with you than have an invoice get in the way of your sessions.

• Saved card on your client profile, charged automatically after each session (what most clients use)

• Emailed invoice, paid by payment link or BPAY

• For NDIS and other third-party funding, we invoice the organisation directly using their process

It varies by therapist, and most of the team combines more than one approach depending on what you're coming in for. Between them, they're trained in:

• EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing)

• Internal Family Systems (IFS, sometimes called parts work)

• Schema Therapy

• CBT, DBT and ACT

• Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT)

• Psychodynamic therapy

• Gottman Method principles

• Gestalt and somatic approaches

• Mindfulness-based, narrative and strengths-based approaches

• Attachment-focused therapy

• Psychedelic integration and harm reduction

Each therapist's profile on our Team page lists what they use. If you're after a specific approach, mention it when you enquire and we'll match you with someone trained in it.

Yes. Several of our therapists work with sexual concerns, including intimacy difficulties, mismatched desire, compulsive sexual behaviour, questions about sexual identity, and recovery after sexual trauma.

To be clear about what this involves: sex therapy at Unison is talk-based. It works the same way as any other therapy session, and there is never any physical contact.

Integration therapy helps people make sense of intense or unusual experiences — for example, from psychedelics, plant medicines or other altered states — and work out what, if anything, to take from them into everyday life.

Harm reduction supports people to make safer, better-informed decisions about substance use without requiring them to stop. Our therapists in this area don't encourage or discourage use; the decisions stay yours.

Yes. We provide EAP counselling for Melbourne businesses. The employer pays for an agreed number of sessions per employee each year, so employees don't pay anything out of pocket.

One difference from most EAP providers: we can include relationship therapy sessions in the package, not only individual counselling. We also tend to suit workplaces with LGBTQIA+, neurodivergent or non-monogamous staff who may not feel comfortable with a mainstream provider.

If you'd like to set one up, get in touch and we'll send through how it works and what it costs.

Individual sessions are 50 minutes. Relationship sessions are 65 minutes for two people and 75 minutes for three or more, because there's more ground to cover when more than one person is in the room. Longer sessions can be arranged on request, with the fee adjusted to match.

You meet one-on-one with your therapist, in person or by telehealth. What you work on is up to you — people come in about stress, relationships, something from the past, a decision they're stuck on, or a specific goal.

There's no set programme. Your therapist will ask about what you want to get out of it in the first session or two, and adjust their approach and pace from there.

It varies a lot. Some people come for a handful of sessions about one specific thing. Others stay for months or years, or take a break and come back later.

You can raise frequency or focus with your therapist at any point — for example, dropping from weekly to fortnightly. They'll help you think it through, but they won't set a timeline for you.

That's a common reason people take a long time to try again, and it's worth telling us about when you enquire. A poor match — the wrong approach, or a therapist who didn't understand your context — can put people off for years.

It's also part of why the free 15-minute fit call exists. If you let us know what didn't work last time (for example, a therapist who was too directive, or who didn't understand your relationship structure), we'll take that into account when we suggest someone.

Our therapists use several trauma-focused approaches, and which one depends on you and on the therapist you see. These include EMDR, Internal Family Systems (IFS), somatic and Gestalt techniques, DBT skills, narrative therapy and mindfulness-based work.

Early sessions usually focus on building stability and skills before going into the harder material. You set the pace, and your therapist won't push you into memories before you're ready.

EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a therapy developed specifically for trauma and PTSD. While you briefly hold a distressing memory in mind, the therapist guides you through bilateral stimulation — usually side-to-side eye movements, sometimes tapping. This helps the brain process a memory that has stayed "stuck" and keeps feeling like it's happening now.

The World Health Organization, NICE in the UK and Phoenix Australia all recognise EMDR as an effective treatment for PTSD. For a single traumatic event it often takes fewer sessions than talk therapy alone.

We have EMDR-trained practitioners on the team — our article on EMDR explains more about how a session works.

Everyone in the relationship who is taking part attends the sessions together, with one therapist. Sessions look at how you interact — how arguments start and escalate, how you communicate, what each of you needs and isn't getting.

The therapist doesn't take sides or decide who's to blame. Their job is to help everyone in the room understand what's happening between you, and to change it.

When new clients begin relationship therapy at Unison, we ask that each person attends a single individual session with the therapist first. This gives the therapist a sense of each person's perspective, and it makes the joint sessions more effective. After that, sessions are 65 minutes for two people and 75 minutes for three or more.

Yes. Several of our therapists work with polyamorous and multi-partner relationships regularly, so you won't need to explain how your relationships work before you can get to what you came in for.

Sessions can include every partner or only some, depending on what the issue is. Common reasons people come in: agreements that need renegotiating, jealousy, a hinge partner stuck in the middle, different needs for time or closeness, or tension that's spreading across the whole polycule.

Yes. Relationship therapy isn't only for romantic partners — we also see close friends, co-parents, family members and metamours. Describe the relationship and what you'd like to work on when you enquire, and we'll suggest a therapist and a session format.

Some of our therapists use Gottman Method principles. The Gottman Method comes from Drs John and Julie Gottman's research with thousands of couples, and focuses on friendship, trust and how conflict is handled.

We don't use one method across the whole practice, though. Depending on the therapist and what you're coming in for, sessions might draw on Gottman, Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), attachment-based work or other relational approaches. If you'd like a Gottman-trained therapist specifically, please mention it when you enquire.

That happens, and it doesn't mean therapy failed. Sometimes it helps people see that they want different things, or that the relationship can't keep going in its current form.

If that's where you land, your therapist can support you through the separation itself — for example, how to tell the kids, or how to work out a co-parenting arrangement. Some people also move into individual sessions with a different therapist at this point.

No. We see people of every sexuality, gender, relationship structure and background, including straight and monogamous clients.

Where we differ from a lot of practices is our experience in areas mainstream services often handle poorly: LGBTQIA+ identities, gender diversity, non-monogamy and polyamory, kink and BDSM, and neurodivergence. If none of those apply to you, you're still very welcome.

It means our therapists treat LGBTQIA+ identities and gender diversity as normal human variation — not something to be explained, tolerated or fixed.

In practice, you won't spend session time educating your therapist about what it's like to be queer or trans, or defending your relationship structure. You can start with whatever brought you in.

Our therapists also keep up with research on mental health issues that affect queer people more often, such as minority stress, internalised shame, and the effects of discrimination in healthcare.

Kink-aware therapy means seeing a therapist who already understands kink, BDSM and sex-positive communities, and who doesn't treat your interests as a problem to diagnose.

Many people in these communities have had a previous practitioner judge them or wrongly treat their kink as the cause of whatever they came in for. At Unison you don't need to justify or explain your interests. Our therapists know how consent, negotiation and community norms usually work, so you don't have to do the educating.

Yes. We regularly see ethically non-monogamous (ENM) and polyamorous clients — individuals, couples, triads, quads, polycules and relationship anarchists.

Non-monogamous relationships have their own pressures: more people to communicate with, agreements to keep negotiating, and jealousy that looks different from monogamous jealousy. You won't have to explain the basics first.

Yes. Several of our therapists work with autistic adults, people with ADHD and other neurodivergent people. Mainstream services often miss neurodivergent people — particularly late-diagnosed adults, autistic women, and people whose neurodivergence overlaps with trauma, sexuality or complicated relationship histories.

We don't approach neurodivergence as something to fix. Therapy can help you understand how it has shaped your relationships, your mental health and the way you've learned to cope — and what you'd like to do differently.

Yes. Sex workers often have trouble finding healthcare that doesn't judge them, and few therapists understand the work well.

Our therapists approach sex work without moralising, and won't make assumptions about why you do it. Everything is confidential. You can come in about work stress, relationships, identity or anything else — sex work doesn't have to be the topic.

Yes. Many of our therapists see clients in person at our Carlton practice in Melbourne. In-person sessions have a $20 in-person fee on top of the standard session fee, which covers the cost of the room.

All of our therapists also offer telehealth, and most of our sessions happen that way.

Our practice is at 3 York Place, Carlton VIC 3053. Trams run along both Swanston Street and Lygon Street nearby, and it's a short walk from the University of Melbourne.

If you can't get to Carlton, we offer telehealth to anyone in Australia.

You'll need a phone, tablet or computer with a camera and microphone, a stable internet connection, and somewhere private — your home, a parked car, anywhere you won't be overheard. The video link comes with your appointment confirmation email.

Some people find it easier to talk from their own space. And yes, pets are welcome to join.

For most concerns, research shows telehealth works about as well as in-person therapy, especially for talk-based approaches.

There are a few exceptions. Some somatic or body-based techniques work better in the room, and some people find it harder to connect through a screen. If your therapist thinks in-person sessions would suit you better, they'll tell you and explain why.

Usually, yes, as long as your therapist has a room booked in Carlton at the time you want. Plenty of clients mix both. Just tell us which you'd like when you book each session.

Yes. Your therapist won't share anything about you without your consent, with three exceptions required by law or professional ethics:

• If there is a serious and imminent risk of harm to you or someone else

• Mandatory reporting, such as a concern about a child's safety

• A court order or subpoena that requires us to release records

Your therapist will go over these at the start of your first session. Outside of them, what you say stays within the practice.

We use an AI-assisted note-taking tool called Heidi, which drafts session notes from the session recording. We only use it if you've given your consent before the session starts.

If you'd rather we didn't, just say so and your therapist will take notes by hand. It won't change your care, and you can withdraw consent at any time.

Heidi is built for Australian healthcare providers and complies with Australian privacy law. Your session content isn't used to train AI models. Our Privacy Policy has the full details.

Your records are kept in Halaxy, an Australian practice management system. Only your treating practitioner and authorised practice staff can access them.

Australian law requires us to keep health records for at least seven years after your last appointment — or, if you were under 18 when you attended, until you turn 25.

Our Privacy Policy on this website has the full details.

Yes. Under Australian privacy law you can request the information we hold about you, including your clinical notes. Email contact@unisonmentalhealth.com or call us, and we'll respond within 30 days.

One thing to know before you ask: clinical notes are working documents written for your practitioner, so they can read quite differently from what you'd expect. If you actually need something specific — a summary letter, a report for another provider, or a list of session dates — tell us, because that may be quicker and more useful than the raw notes.

Unison is not a crisis service, and we can't provide emergency or after-hours support. If you're in immediate danger or having a mental health emergency:

• Call 000

• Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (24/7)

• Call Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 (24/7)

• Call the Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467

• For domestic and family violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732

• Or go to your nearest hospital emergency department

Our therapists are only available during booked sessions. If you're a current client and need to reach us urgently between sessions, contact the admin team during business hours and we'll help you get connected with support.

Yes, if you're currently safe. Our therapists are trained to work with suicidal thoughts calmly and without overreacting, and many clients talk about them in therapy.

What we can't do is respond in an emergency or after hours. If you're at immediate risk, call 000 or Lifeline on 13 11 14 — don't wait for your next session.

When you enquire, please tell us if suicidal thoughts are part of what's going on. That helps us match you with a therapist who has the right experience from the first session.