by Esther Linder

A constant in life is change – and the ACA team was delighted to welcome attendees from around Australia and overseas to discuss the theme “Changing Landscapes” at the 2025 Annual Conference, held on Kaurna Country in South Australia (June 11-13). Our first day saw participants partake in a round of masterclasses from supporting and fostering growth in migrant clients to assisted psychedelic therapies.

On Thursday, attendees were greeted in a warm Welcome to Country by Ella Taylor and Harley Hall, who shared the story of the big red kangaroo, an icon of South Australia’s Indigenous heritage. ACA’s CEO Jodie McKenzie and Chair Dee Hardy then took to the stage to open the conference, noting the Association has now reached 20,000 registered members. “Our professional identity is strengthening,” Jodie said, and reflected on the counselling profession as “meeting people at their most vulnerable” in this deeply human work.

The struggle to juggle life, work and play is ongoing for every single human, and art therapist and counsellor Bel Ryan’s work encompasses this as she strives to find new ways to connect and share life’s struggles. To open the first keynote of the conference, Bel shared a story of, in her words, “sitting on my client’s bathroom floor and feeling pure love” as she realised her intervention had saved someone’s life. A colourful CV, from working on Country in Daly River to paediatric palliative care, and now giving regular talks and workshops to hundreds of people sees Bel using art and play therapy to engage with people both in and out of the counselling room. Conference attendees got a taste of this as they were encouraged to use colourful pipe cleaner wires to fashion a 3D representation of how their lives are now – and how they could be simplified to better care for themselves. Another playful example saw the use of a ball kit to show how we are all juggling dozens of things at once – and in Bel’s professional opinion, “some could be given to someone else”, from unrealistic expectations to tough boundaries.

For counsellors, being professional support systems through the toughest parts of people’s lives, sometimes learning to adjust when your own life is becoming difficult can be a challenge. In Bel’s words, “What are you holding and what do you need to put down?” And as the presentation concluded, finding a myriad of ways to connect, explore and reflect on your own wellbeing makes a stronger counsellor and healthier human.

Mental health in Myanmar

Offering mental health care and support in a warzone is one of the most difficult professional landscapes one can imagine, and is the reality for those of the Counselling Corner in Myanmar. ACA’s conference was pleased to welcome our second keynote speakers of the day, Edwin Briels and Aung Min Thein, who navigate the daily changing landscape of mental health in a country with a huge stigma of “talking about emotions” as well as being a country at war.

“Imagine the mental health landscape is bare - talking about feelings is not done, and quite honestly there’s no interest in mental health. Where do you start?” Aung Min asked attendees via videolink. Established in 2018, the Counselling Corner began with the goal of providing mental health support across Myanmar, one client and one conversation at a time and is run by Aung Min and his partner Edwin Briels, who met in 2004. After studying counselling in Australia, Aung Min decided to return to his homeland, a place of “silence and stigma” around mental health, with a vision of normalising health conversations around the mind and wellbeing. Experiments such as using celebrities to talk about mental health on TV to running ads on public buses were just some of the toolkit Counselling Corner worked with as part of their mission.

In February 2021, the military junta who had previously controlled Myanmar staged a coup and removed the democratically elected government from power. In Aung Min’s words, “ I knew what this would mean: people would lose jobs, homes and loved ones. The collective trauma would grow deeper.” He saw helping people as a way of justice at a time such deep human rights injustices, where clients may be dealing with anything from depression and anxiety to the aftermath of torture at the hands of the regime. Inherent dangers, from the arrest to execution, are constant worries for the founders and their employees – but yet they continue.

The organisation’s person-centred approach, focusing on a policy of “no harm”, works across the country in a number of ways; from free art workshops to training dozens of counsellors using a curriculum based on the ACA’s Code of Conduct. Right now, Counselling Corner supports around 2,000 people a month, in a country of 55 million with one of the highest rates of depression in the world (comparable to Gaza and Ukraine). Edwin spoke of the financial challenges and ways that Counselling Corner works to support their clients, from partnering with international NGOs as an EAP service, obtaining funding from the United Nations to run 60 pop-up mental health hubs, to the sliding scale they offer individual clients who may not be able to afford a full-fee session. “That’s why we keep training - not just counsellors, but witnesses … In this work, we don’t fix people. We remind them of their strength,” Aung Min said.

Despite the daily challenges of civil war, Aung Minh still dreams of a national body for counselling, and a network of professional counsellors, supervisors and trainers. Small moments of change, where a client may find the words to speak about unimaginable traumas for the first time in months, give them hope. “We don’t know what the future will bring,” Edwin said, and outlined their dreams for a country that is deeply scarred, but deeply hopeful.

Research in focus

Across the 2025 conference, outstanding research from members was on show in a variety of topic areas and skillsets. To introduce the importance of practice-based research, a panel lead by Research Committee members Dr Katrina Andrews and Shannon Hodges (from the National Heads of Counselling and Psychotherapy Education) spoke about their work to shape a voice and professional identity for counsellors in research today. They acknowledged the lack of publishing opportunities for counsellors and psychotherapists, but offered community in the committee’s YouTube channel that interviews current researchers as well as resources for building a research practice.

“Don’t think for a minute you’re not a researcher – you’re all researchers,” Dr Andrews said.

Supporting trans and gender diverse youth in counselling

Trans and gender diverse clients are often a vulnerable cohort, and the 2025 ACA conference was honoured to host a heartfelt presentation from Mx Sarah Brown on the importance of supporting these clients. Given anywhere from 2-5 per cent of Australian youth identify as trans or gender diverse, Mx Brown underscored that “one of the most powerful things a counsellor can do is normalise their experience. It is okay to feel uncertain, scared or angry,” they said.

“It is really important to understand that being trans is not new. Trans and gender diverse identities have existed across cultures for thousands of years, and are part of the rich tapestry of humanity,” they said.

Understanding gender identity as a complex and individual tapestry, and ensuring the use of correct pronouns and chosen names as identified by the client all work to build safety within affirming someone’s identity. Mx Brown also covered critical topics such as the types of discrimination experienced by trans and gender diverse clients, and the legal, medical and social affirmation needed to make them feel safe and supported. It is essential not to make assumptions within practice, and reiterated the common experience of being misgendered by medical and mental health professionals. “Silence reinforces harm,” they said.

Adapting usual practices to work with trans and gender diverse people can take many forms; from ensuring intake forms and websites offer inclusive options for gender and pronouns, to reflecting on one’s own beliefs, assumptions and ideas around gender, to supporting choices around hormone or other medical care. “Our role is not to define it for them, but be led by them,” Mx Brown said.

How ADHD influences counselling service delivery

As increasing numbers of clients across Australia receive diagnoses of ADHD, two academics found there was a gap in research; specifically, considering neurodiverse therapists as part of the framework. Dr Rana Tasa and Emna Malas joined the ACA conference to present their research that questioned whether neurodiverse counsellors are uniquely suited for the profession as a result of their ADHD.

Four parameters – the impact on professional practice, a desire to avoid an entirely negative view, a search for the unique strengths and adaptations, and the experience of professional life including identity and client relationships – formed the basis of this research. “What if the very trait that makes some aspects of counselling hard makes us neurodiverse counsellors uniquely good at it?” Dr Tasa and Ms Malas asked.

Despite systemic gaps and limited contextual research on ADHD in work environments, the two-year qualitative study found a number of strengths and complicating factors for mental health professionals with ADHD. In particular, viewing the diagnosis as an asset in a counselling practice given the intimate understanding of living with neurodiversity was a strength, with a neurodiverse client base and community attracted to these professionals. Counselling through an intersectional lens – as is best practice for all therapists – can work to prevent some of the issues associated with complex executive functioning that ADHD professionals often deal with.

Most of all, their research found that inclusive workplaces that see neurodiverse counsellors as assets, and use unique strategies to make the most of their gifts, see therapists and clients alike thrive.

Problematic sleep in young people: an innovative and digital-based intervention

Sleep keeps us going, but sometimes it stops. To open the second day of the ACA’s 2025 Annual Conference, Dr Sarah Barker from the Black Dog Institute woke us up to some of the troubles facing young people as they learn, play and grow – often without enough sleep.

Dr Barker noted that with one in five 12-16-year-olds sleeping less than six hours a night, and a growing number meeting clinical criteria for insomnia (14 per cent of girls and 6 per cent of boys), sleep is now frustratingly out of reach for many of our young people. With a delayed sleep cycle, psychosocial pressures, increasing hours of screen time and the burdens of schooling, more and more youth are unable to sleep when they need – and the impacts are showing with rising levels of anxiety, depression and related mental health issues.

To this end, the Sleep Ninja app was born, beginning with a simple question: “Can we reduce and prevent depression and other mental health problems in young people?” The free six-week program delivered through the app works to track sleep and train young people using CBT strategies, relaxation techniques and stimulus control.

The results are astounding: rates of clinical insomnia reduced from 71 per cent to 28 per cent; and rates of clinical depression went down from 77 per cent to 44 per cent. Dr Barker encouraged parents, carers and clinicians to consider the app as a stand-alone intervention or as something to integrate into a clinical practice as an equitable and accessible tool.

Key findings from Australia’s mental health check up

Every two years, a temperature check of Australia’s mental health begins: a questionnaire helmed by Beyond Blue, asking over 5000 people how and why their mental health is changing. Themis Antony from Beyond Blue joined the 2025 Conference to present the findings of the 2024 report, and talk through the trends the organisation is seeing.

Firstly and unsurprisingly, symptoms of mental health are common and their severity has increased from 2022. Just under half of people (49 per cent) surveyed had experienced anxiety of depression within the last two weeks, with a third of people in the mild range for symptoms. Those suffering from severe mental health symptoms has increased from 6 to 7 per cent, and rates of diagnoses have increased.

For mental health professionals, these are sobering numbers as clients increasingly presenting with challenging mental health issues, with younger adults and women more likely to suffer. More people are seeking help, Ms Antony explained, but the combination of financial pressures, relationship challenges, housing and loneliness is becoming ultimately more challenging. “As stressors increase, so do mental health symptoms,” she said.

Rising rates of anxiety and depression makes sense when considering the variety of stressors present and the state of the world, Ms Antony said, with global insecurity and risk having profound impacts on mental health worldwide. And while more people are turning to the mental health workforce for support, one in four who need assistance delay for at least a month. There is no simple answer to this period of significant complexity, with more and more flashpoints for distress presenting in the counselling room. “We can’t separate people’s mental health from this broader social and global context,” she continued and pointed to plans to refresh Beyond Blue’s work to better respond to this growing crisis.

Counselling adults with misattributed paternity

Parental relationships crop up often in the counselling room, and the psychosocial implications of shifts in these later in life is a relatively new research field. Alyona Cerfontyne’s work on counselling adults with misattributed paternity – specifically, adults who realise later in life that their publicly identified or social father is not their biological parent – began with a personal story of her own experience with paternity. Ms Cerfontyne found out through a DNA test taken later in her life that the man who raised her was not her biological father. For her, this led to “massive shock”, one that still affects her today and prompted her research into the field.

Data suggests one to four per cent of people in the western world have misattributed paternity, with that number likely to rise as commercial DNA tests become more commonplace. As Ms Cerfontyne said, up to 4 million people may have already discovered or are about to discover their parental relationships are misattributed.

The reorganisation of identity after this kind of experience is complex, with clients experiencing a range of emotions from shock, anxiety, loss and grief, guilt, shame, anger and more. Ms Cerfontyne stressed that counselling for clients with misattributed paternity can foster empathy and validation as well as guidance for moving through such an identity crisis. “Our mother and father are the centre that we build our identity on,” she explained, and encouraged specialised knowledge as well as awareness in order to build a best-practice response to clients in need.

Applying grief theories to climate distress

One of the final, and most moving, sessions of the conference was presented by Dr Brenda Bentley of Yorkville University in Canada, and focused on how grief therapy can be used for people dealing with the ever present reality of climate catastrophe, a condition increasingly known as climate distress.

Dr Bentley began her address by speaking of the trees – the redwood groves of California that she has visited with her family for many years. After a wildfire devastated the town she grew up in, Dr Bentley returned to the redwoods to remember and grieve both the memories of place but also the future of what will be lost.

In her words: “All the emotional chaos inside me suddenly had a name — and not just a name, a map.” As a professional therapist, she considered: how could grief theories and frameworks used in session for years and taught to hundreds of students be applied to the experience of climate distress? “We may not know how to accept the whole picture, but we can help clients accept this feeling or this particular loss,” Dr Bentley said.

Adjusting to a world that is fundamentally changing in our lifetimes involves many deep and existential questions of connection and relation, and Dr Bentley outlined how theories such as anticipatory grief, disenfranchised grief and continuing bonds can be used to deal with these quandaries. Above all, she explained how these reactions are a “natural, healthy and necessary response” to unprecedented losses, and making room for these questions is needed.

“Grief is not just about surviving - it’s about accepting, feeling, adapting and reorganising - and ultimately finding meaning in the face of loss,” she told the conference. For many clients dealing with climate distress, they may find they are dealing with prolonged grief disorder, defined as a persistent state of mind lasting over 12 months that causes significant impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning.

“As counsellors, we cannot solve climate change, but we can hold space for the human response to it,” Dr Bentley said.

This year’s Annual Conference welcomed over 50 presenters and 500 attendees, and the ACA thanks everyone who made the trip to Adelaide to share, connect and grow professionally. A special thank you to all our generous volunteers who made this event possible. Until next year!