My name is Mahlie, and I’m not just a qualified and experienced art therapist...
I have been working in roles supporting people with their mental health for over 20 years. During this time I completed a Masters degree in Art Psychotherapy (M.AThR; M.ACA) as well as a Bachelors Degree in Communication Graphic Co-Design, Advanced Diplomas in mental health work, drug and alcohol counselling and Fine Art….. AND I’m also a trained peer worker using Intentional Peer Support (IPS).In 2025, Mahlie began post-graduate research into the post-diagnostic therapeutic support needs of late and later-in-life diagnosed autistic womxn with Latrobe University and Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre (OTARC). Find out more: https://livingartstherapy.com/autism/
I have completed advanced training in trauma-informed practice and process and am a member of the Blue Knot Complex Trauma Professionals Network. I have completed gender affirming practice training (QLife / Twenty10, ACON, Blue Knot), Narrative Therapy (Dulwich Centre) and DBT facilitation and therapy (BehaviorTech/Psychwire).
I maintain ongoing professional development, practitioner training and academic writing where I centre and disclosed lived experience openly as a political act of rebellion and visibility.
My professional registrations include:
- ANZACATA - AThR (professional membership number: 49852078)
- Australian Counselling Association (membership number: 20333)
- Blue Knot Complex Trauma Professional Community
- Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association
- International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD)
- International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD)
- NSW Working with Children Check (number: WWC1906452E, exp: 19/05/26)
- Insured by BMS risk solutions
I have lived experience...
I am a proud Wiradjuri woman who was diagnosed late in life with Autism and ADHD despite many decades in public health systems. I am a complex trauma survivor and I also live with chronic health and pain conditions and brain injury.
My pronouns are she/they and I also use I/we/us to convey that I live with a complex identity system. I am a cisgendered queer woman who believes strongly in everything on a spectrum of experience. I believe that spectrums are where our beauty lies.
My pronouns are she/they and I also use I/we/us to convey that I live with a complex identity system. I am a cisgendered queer woman who believes strongly in everything on a spectrum of experience. I believe that spectrums are where our beauty lies.
My work celebrates diversity…
My work is political because therapy is political. I have a value system that matters to me and my work. I work from several frameworks including Intentional Peer Support (IPS), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Narrative Therapy (NT) and Trauma and Diversity informed practice. I take a non-medicalised approach to people and work alongside them as a peer, not an “expert”. My approach is gender and neurodiversity affirming and celebratory. My approach centres and makes space for transgender, genderqueer, blak, black, brown and other people of colour as well as disabled people and those marginalised by society. I work from a decolonised framework as much as possible and operate within equity frameworks. I am not the right therapist for everyone.
so.... you’re not “too complex”...
I’ve been honoured to work alongside people who share lived experiences with me that might include being autistic, AuDHD and other neurodivergence, living with complex trauma, personality, mood and dissociative "disorder" labels, emotional dysregulation and suicidality.
I have a strong passion for working with other autistic people and within the LGBTIQA+ community.
lets start creating togetherI have a strong passion for working with other autistic people and within the LGBTIQA+ community.
P.S You’ll probably meet my pug Skylar during our online sessions, I can’t wait to meet you furbabies as well!
Training includes:
- Strategies to support clients living with chronic pain
- Suicide Prevention - LivingWorks
- Trans-Affirming Practice for Art Therapists
- Mentalizing and MBT: An Introduction
- Suicide-related behaviour among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQIA+SB people
- Advanced Narrative Therapy Practice
- DBT Therapy Facilitation
- DBT skills facilitation
- LGBTIQA+ Affirming Therapy
- Decolonising mental health when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
- Working with trauma and dissociation
- Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience
- Trauma and Diversity Informed Practice
- Working with Complex Personality Disorder
- Advanced Trauma-informed Practice
- No Bars - working with Criminal Justice
- Understanding Brain Injury
- Long Term Impacts of Child Abuse
- Domestic and Family Violence work
- Aboriginal People and AOD
- Working with Children Check (NSW)
