Joel McNamara

Joel McNamara is an ACA counsellor with four years' experience working in Australia. He focuses on stress, anxiety, addictions, self-esteem, depression and ADHD, and often helps people who are asking what matters next in their life. He works with clients who want to change unwanted behaviours and to clarify what a valued life could look like for them.

Joel describes therapy as a collaborative conversation. He treats clients as experts on their own life and helps them name problems and the deeper wants those problems point to. Together they build practical steps to reduce problematic behaviour and aim to make chosen values more present in daily life.

His main ways of working are person-centred methods supported by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Narrative Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. He also uses approaches that involve the body and nervous system to help with emotional and behavioural regulation. Sessions are shaped around the person rather than around a single method.

Joel has experience working cross-culturally and has a particular interest in supporting young adults and men’s mental health. He invites people who are curious about life purpose to explore what matters to them and what a meaningful next step might look like.

Practical work in sessions includes clarifying values, experimenting with new behaviours, and using stories about past experiences to shift perspective. He helps people put short-term action plans in place and reviews progress in concrete ways.

How Joel’s therapeutic approaches work online

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) helps people clarify what matters to them and take actions consistent with those values. In practice this looks like identifying small, doable steps and practising new behaviours aimed at reducing anxiety, avoidance or addictive patterns.

Attachment-Based Therapy focuses on patterns that developed in early relationships and how those patterns affect current connection and trust. It can help with communication problems, dependent personality traits, or feelings of emptiness by mapping how old relational habits show up now.

Finding the right approach is part of the work. Joel will discuss different methods and help the client choose what fits their goals, needs and preferences. This is a collaborative process rather than a fixed prescription, and techniques can be mixed as progress is reviewed.

Session formats are not listed in the biography, so confirm the current options before booking. Online work can make it easier to fit sessions into a week, reduce travel time, and support shorter check-ins when full sessions are difficult. It can also allow for flexible pacing when experimenting with behavioural changes or grounding practices that involve body-based regulation.