About Sweetnam Psychology

Taylor Sweetnam | Clinical Psychologist

Kingscliff NSW | Miami QLD | Telehealth Australia Wide

I'm Taylor, a clinical psychologist working in the beautiful Northern Rivers region of NSW.

I work with people who have learned to manage on a surface level. For the most part, their emotions are kept in check, their image is upheld, they’re holding down a job, and their relationships are going okay. Externally, they look like they’re doing well, and nobody stops to ask if that's actually how they feel on the inside.

Internally, many of the patients I see are experiencing anxiety, low mood, relationship patterns that keep repeating, low self-esteem, difficulty with boundaries or knowing their own needs, or a persistent sense of not quite knowing what they want or who they are.

Somewhere along the way they've lost touch with what they actually feel and what they actually want. No amount of thinking, striving, or holding it together has shifted it.

Something underneath isn't working.

Therapy is where we get to explore that and move through it.

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About Me

I view my work as a psychologist as an extraordinary privilege. In session I am often entrusted with parts of people that they rarely (if ever) share with anyone else. I do not take this lightly, and I aim to honour the bravery it takes to reveal these protected pieces of yourself.

If you’re seeking a psychologist who values depth, focus, attunement and direct communication, then you may have found the right place. My style as a psychologist holds both softness and direct communication. I care deeply about the people I work with, and I also believe that naming what I see, even when it's uncomfortable, is one of the kindest and most powerful things I can offer. I'll notice things as they happen between us and name them. I'll interrupt when something important is being talked around, and bring us back to it.

I specialise in supporting adults navigating anxiety, relationship difficulties, attachment traumas, and significant life transitions. Many of the people I work with seek help with emotional regulation, low self-worth, an overactive inner critic, or challenges with boundaries and communication in their relationships. 

I believe that healing is a human process, not a clinical one. Together, whether our work is brief or long-term, we build something genuine. A real relationship that becomes a template for the ones you want outside of it. One where the mask of stoicism and polite perfection gets to come off.

While I have been trained in several different approaches, I primarily practice psychodynamic therapy. This means we work beneath the surface of your symptoms, looking at the emotional patterns and experiences that are driving them rather than managing them from the outside in.

About You

The people I work with are often managing on the outside but struggling on the inside.

Many people come to see me at a turning point. A relationship that's causing pain. A loss that hasn't been properly grieved. A pattern of anxiety or low mood that keeps returning no matter what they try. Some come after years of putting everyone else first and finding themselves depleted, disconnected, or quietly resentful. Others arrive after a single event that cracked something open and made it impossible to keep managing the way they have been.

What most of them share is a sense that they understand themselves reasonably well, but that understanding hasn't been enough to change anything. The work isn't always about the relationship or the situation. It's about being connected to your internal word in way that allows you to know what you feel, what you need, how to say it, and how to hold your ground when it matters.

You may find yourself people-pleasing, minimising your own needs, suppressing your emotions, or repeating relational patterns that leave you feeling stuck. Sometimes this shows up in the body: gastrointestinal symptoms, headaches, dissociation, or seemingly random episodes of vision or hearing changes.

You may have tried therapy before and found it helpful on some levels, but felt it didn't go deep enough. You're ready for something to actually shift.

Do you recognise yourself here?

  • Chronic or high-functioning anxiety

  • Burnout

  • High achieving with little sense of internal pride

  • Physical anxiety symptoms (gastrointestinal upset, bodily tension, migraine headache, nausea)

  • People-pleasing or approval-seeking

  • Emotional suppression and a tendency to go intellectual 

  • Difficulty setting boundaries or choosing your own path without guilt

  • Fear of disappointing parents or partners

  • Highly self-critical

  • Conflict avoidance and challenges with communication

  • Shutting down, going flat, or becoming tearful in emotionally intense situations

  • Repeating unhealthy relationship dynamics

  • Not knowing what you truly want

  • Minimising your own feelings

  • Feeling resentful but unable to express anger

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Research and Publications

My clinical work and my research have always run alongside each other. The research I have been involved in has been wide-ranging, including work on addiction and antimicrobial resistance. My primary area of academic focus has been alexithymia, high functioning defence mechanisms such as heavy reliance on exercise, and difficulties in emotional regulation.

Alexithymia is a personality trait characterised by difficulty recognising, naming, and expressing emotions. It tends to create a concrete, intellectual relationship with emotional experience. One that lives more in the head than the body. While for some people this reflects neurobiological differences (for example, differences in how neurotypical and neurodivergent people access their emotions) for others it is more reflective of emotional protection. When it lands in this area, from the lens I work through, it isn't a flaw or deficit. It's something the mind learned to do, usually very early, when feelings felt unsafe, unwanted, or simply too much for important attachment figures to tolerate.

When emotions can't be named or truly felt, anxiety tends to run high. Emotional regulation becomes harder, and agency in the face of emotional stimuli becomes lost. People develop mechanisms that keep feelings at bay, but at real cost to themselves and their relationships.

Many of the people I sit with live this every day, often without ever having a name for it. This research shapes how I listen, and what I listen for. It keeps me curious and attuned to the many different ways people express, and protect against, their own emotional experience.

I've published several papers in this area. The full references are listed below for anyone interested.

FAQs

More About Taylor

  • Following university-level training I sought additional specialised training to build a skill set that allows me to work confidently with complex emotional patterns, relational difficulties, and trauma.

    I keep a deliberately small caseload, work within a defined niche, and hold myself to a standard of ongoing development that goes well beyond what is required to maintain registration as a psychologist in Australia. This model of practice has a name: deliberate practice. It is how the best clinicians in any field continue to develop long after their formal training ends.

    In practice that means weekly case consultation with some of Australia's leading psychodynamic practitioners, and monthly full-day intensive ISTDP training. Case consultation is always undertaken with your explicit consent, and your confidentiality is always maintained.

    Doing this work well requires constant sharpening. I invest meaningfully in my craft, so that what I bring to our sessions is always at its best.

    • Bachelor of Psychological Science, Griffith University

    • Graduate Diploma of Psychological Science, Bond University

    • Master of Psychology (Clinical), Charles Darwin University

    • Licensed Clinical Psychologist (AHPRA #PSY0002483536)

    • Core Training in Intensive Short Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP) with Dr Sarah Walker and Dr Kristy Lamb

    My ongoing training includes weekly clinical supervision and intensive ISTDP training.

    • Bachelor of Psychological Science, Griffith University (Gold Coast) - School of Applied Psychology

    • Graduate Diploma of Psychological Science, Bond University (Gold Coast) - School of Psychology

    • Master of Psychology (Clinical), Charles Darwin University (Darwin) - School of Psychology

    • Licensed Clinical Psychologist (AHPRA #PSY0002483536)

    • Core Training in Intensive Short Term Psychodynamic Therapy (ISTDP) with Dr Sarah Walker and Dr Kristy Lamb

  • I’ve had the privilege of training in a wide range of therapy approaches. My work is primarily grounded psychodynamic therapies. In particular my preferred approach is Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP). This approach helps us get beneath surface symptoms and into the deeper emotional patterns that shape how we feel and relate.

    Alongside this, I have also trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Schema Therapy, and trauma-focused approaches. This additional training serves to strengthen the tools we can use when working psychodynamically for emotional insight, regulation, and mindful processing.

  • I’ve worked across a wide range of settings, which has given me the privilege of supporting people through very different life challenges. My experience spans community services, veterans’ support, youth mental health, and private practice. Along the way, I’ve worked with children, adolescents, and adults, including neurodivergent patients and people living with complex trauma, severe anxiety, depression, and personality difficulties.

    I have been working privately for several years now, where I work primarily with adults.

  • For interested parties, links to research papers are below:

    Sweetnam, T. J., & Flack, M. (2023). Ready, set, …and difficultly slowing down: What role does alexithymia, emotional regulation and interoceptive awareness play in exercise dependence?Acta Psychologica, 237, Article 103958. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.103958

    Lyvers, M. F., Sweetnam, T., & Thorberg, F. (2021). Alexithymia, rash impulsiveness, and reward sensitivity in relation to symptoms of exercise dependence in physically active young adults. Australian Journal of Psychology, 73(4), 475-485. https://doi.org/10.1080/00049530.2021.1981747

  • Diagnosis is not something I provide as part of my direct therapy services. Diagnostic labels such as those found in the DSM-5 can be very helpful, but in therapy, they can also be limiting.

    The human mind naturally uses categories to make sense of the world as this helps us create mental shortcuts for faster decision-making. Diagnoses are no different, and they can therefore create assumptions about how a person with a certain diagnosis may think, feel, or behave.

    By setting these aside, we focus on you as the person who walks into the room, understanding your experiences on your own terms without preconceptions.

  • I grew up on the Gold Coast, but did my postgraduate training in the Northern Territory. My partner is also a therapist, and together we’re raising our beautiful little boy who gives us plenty of opportunities to navigate our own internal conflicts and mixed emotions that come with parenthood.

    I’m fairly dependent on coffee to get through the day, love a great book, and take any excuse to sit by the water.

    I’m a chronic hobby hopper. At the moment, I’m trying my hand at pottery and experimenting with growing and harvesting flowers to create arrangements for my home. (The pottery is lopsided and the floral arrangements are a work in progress, but it’s all about the process…right?)

Still wondering something?

Just message me - I’m happy to help!