Meet Harrison Hawkins

Clinical Psychologist & Behaviour Support Practitioner

Why were you drawn to studying Psychology?

I remember being somewhat confused by why people acted the way they did - that pushed me towards Psychology, to learn more about the mind. Our world can be chaotic, and I liked learning new ways of navigating it, and the thought of helping others navigate the world was a really fulfilling idea.

What do you enjoy about your work, and what are you interested in or fascinated by?

I love the puzzle of trying to work it out - working out what might be limiting someone from what they want or need.

I enjoy trying to understand people who don’t feel understood. The phenomenal range of diversity in humans, leads to equally unique complications and ways of suffering. Working through that is interesting and pretty special.

I like that in this work I have the ability to address the real challenges that people face in their environment. I get to use so many tools and work with many different people to try to make that happen.

Making a positive difference is important to me, and I enjoy working for that. As humans that are aware of this enormous and imperfect world, it can be tempting to say “it doesn’t matter anyway”. I try to catch myself with that - as what we do individually, has a real and collective impact. This work provides a lot of potential to contribute positively to others and I’m grateful for that.

What drives you to show up for yourself and your clients in this role?

Honestly, seeing my clients and others show up and do the work is such a motivator for me. Witnessing how much people can change, adapt and grow has repeatedly taught me what can happen when you just show up and do the work. That helps me commit to the process, and the slow-but-real change is where it’s at afterall.

What have people said about your approach to this work?

People have said my approach is thoughtful, curious, and collaborative.

  • I aim to approach therapy in a collaborative, curious and open minded way. I like to see humans as fundamentally equal yet different, and appreciate our differences and what makes us unique. I am less interested in telling people how to live and more interested in helping people understand how they live – which can naturally reveal a valuable path forward. I recognise the power of the developing mind and the brain's ability to learn from experiences. I appreciate bringing unknown inner-workings into awareness, so they can be worked with. People can find their nervous system repeatedly stuck in disturbing emotional states - I recognise the worthiness of targeting this with a body-mind approach, in order to find new states for the nervous system to call home. With this understanding, approach and some practical skills to match – I feel we can make room for more valued parts of our-self to come forward.

    My approach includes ideas and resources from modalities such as:

    • Positive Behaviour Support (PBS)

    • Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)

    • Schema Therapy and Somatic Experiencing (SE)

    • Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). I’ve done advanced training in the use of EMDR, which has considerable support for its effectiveness with trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

    The above allows me to prioritise a person-centred approach to therapy.

  • I have clinical experience across community, disability-specific, social service, hospital, and private practice settings.

    Within disability-specific settings I have worked in a range of roles, for example as a support worker, support planner, support coordinator, Clinical Psychologist and Behaviour Support Practitioner. This helps me understand and navigate key issues from a range of perspectives.

    I’m interested in the way a developing mind can be impacted, and more effective ways we can work with this impact. I’m especially interested in adapting therapy approaches to target inner-workings, in situations and people, where they are difficult to access.

    I started and manage The Therapy Studio, and am interested in further developing an organisation where all of us here can collectively make a difference in our own way.

    • Bachelor of Psychology with Honours, from the University of Wollongong

    • Master of Clinical Psychology, from the University of Technology Sydney