About
Our emotions tell a story, they direct our actions. But unless we are aware of how they influence what we do, they can often get in the way.
Talking Emotions helps you listen. Not only to the story that comes from your head, but also to what your body has to say. Developing greater awareness of your emotional experience and the skills to manage it can be the springboard to creating healthier relationships with self and others, and lead to a more productive life.
Director, Lou Cooper, established Talking Emotions to provide an arena where emotions take centre stage.
Let’s start the conversation.
Counselling
Talking Emotions offers individual counselling for adults and adolescents. Our South Yarra and Fitzroy locations have excellent access to public transport and a variety of parking options.
Talking Emotions can help with:
Stress and anxiety
Depression
Trauma
Relationship difficulties
Sexuality and gender
Chronic illness
Pain
Medicare and private health insurance rebated sessions are available.
All Talking Emotions practitioners and associates are trained in Emotion Focused Therapy as well as a variety of other modalities.
Talking Emotions provides LGBTI inclusive practice.
Training
Talking Emotions offers presentations and workshops for professional development and to assist in promoting well-being in the workplace.
Emotion Focused Therapy
Emotions in the Workplace
LGBTIQ+ inclusiveness (for professionals and workplaces)
Talking Emotions can tailor a program to meet your specific needs.
Practitioners
Dr Louise (Lou) Cooper
Director of Talking Emotions
Fitzroy & online
Lou is an experienced presenter, facilitator, counsellor, clinical supervisor and trainer. She establishes collaborative working relationships with clients, engendering mutual respect and a celebration of individuality. She believes that each individual necessarily needs to be encouraged to take responsibility for change in their lives and endeavours to foster a nurturing and supportive environment where challenges can be approached in safety.
Lou hopes to assist individual clients in gaining meaning from the past, an ability to live in the present, and hope for the future.
When working with groups, Lou draws from her experience as an actor and broadcaster to skillfully engage people in stories and metaphor that facilitate learning.
Lou is a former co-ordinator of group programs at the Anxiety Recovery Centre Victoria (ARCVic) and practitioner at Drummond Street Services Queerspace. She is an AHPRA registered supervisor, an internationally accredited supervisor in Emotion Focused Therapy, and Chair and Lead Trainer at the Australian Institute of Emotion Focused Therapy.
Lou is the host of the Emotion Focused podcast emotionfocused.com
Associates
Anthony Aris
Psychologist and Accredited Emotion Focused Therapist
Fitzroy and online
Anthony brings over 30 years of experience providing psychological interventions to diverse groups of adults and young people in numerous community and organisational settings.
As a counsellor and therapist he is relatable and engaging aiming to provide a safe and authentically caring environment for working through and resolving emotional difficulties. These may be the legacy of trauma and other psychological injuries that disturb current relationships with self, others and the world.
Anthony’s style is flexible and he readily adapts to clients' needs, sometimes providing strategies and problem solving and at other times processing and healing emotional pain and trauma when clients feel ready, willing and able for this work.
Charlotte Cunningham
Clinical Psychologist
Fitzroy
Charlotte is a registered psychologist who has a background in acting and literature studies, and an enduring fascination with the human condition. Drawing on a range of therapeutic approaches, Charlotte works within a collaborative, person-centred, humanistic framework, both guiding and being guided by her clients. Ultimately, she is committed to supporting clients in exploring, understanding and integrating their lived experience so that they may develop authentic and meaningful lives.
Charlotte has worked in public, private and not-for-profit mental health services, providing both group and individual support. She has extensive experience working with addictions, and with people with developmental and post-traumatic stress, anxiety disorders and mood disorders. Charlotte is also passionate about the journey through grief and loss, and challenging life transitions.
Laura Kemppainen
Psychologist
Fitzroy
Laura works with children (5+), adolescents and adults. Laura worked in a family/community mental health organisations prior to entering private practice and is experienced working in addiction and trauma. She has also worked for an LGBTIQ + specific service. Laura has a warm and client-centered style and works collaboratively with clients to create and work on meaningful treatment goals believing strongly in the importance of listening and clients being heard in therapy.
Laura combines evidence-based interventions including emotion-focused and person-centered therapy. With children and families she combines play with talking therapy and practical interventions (including liaising with schools). Laura works with a anxiety, depression, general mental health issues, trauma, relationship & attachment issues, grief & loss, sexuality & gender identity, and issues with adjustment and substance use.
Lisa Winther
Psychologist
Fitzroy and online
Lisa is an experienced registered psychologist who believes that engaging in therapy can help people gain a sense of direction and possibility in their lives. Lisa adopts a holistic approach using a wide variety of evidence informed techniques which are integrated during therapy. She is particularly drawn to therapies which promote an exploration and acceptance of emotions. She believes that understanding one's emotional patterns and reactions is the gateway to self and other understanding, and this knowledge can help navigate you through the worry, confusion, conflict or loss that we all experience at times.
Lisa brings a warm personal style, is interactive and respectful, tempered with humour. Lisa has worked in a range of settings including child and adolescent mental health services working primarily with parents and is currently combining her private practice with continued work in the public sector specialising in the management of chronic pain.
Lisa works with individuals, couples and parents experiencing life transitions, relational difficulties, mood and anxiety problems, chronic pain and trauma.
Yan Yang
Psychologist
Fitzroy and online
Yan is a bilingual psychologist fluent in English and Mandarin. Her prior clinical experience spans both public and private mental health sectors. She has developed a strong commitment to supporting neurodivergent adults, individuals with developmental trauma, and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
As a humanistic therapist, Yan is warm, gentle, and down-to-earth. Her strengths lie in her ability to listen deeply and openly, collaborating with clients to harness their unique strengths for healing and personal growth. She primarily practices Emotion Focused Therapy whilst also incorporating a range of other therapeutic techniques, such as those from mindfulness and schema therapy, to ensure that each client's journey is individualised and personally meaningful.
In addition to her registration as a psychologist in Australia, Yan is a clinical psychologist in the UK. She has served as a lecturer in Psychology at London South Bank University and RMIT.
All Talking Emotions associates are practitioners of Emotion Focused Therapy as well as other approaches.
Contact
Phone 0408 051 290
Email lou@talkingemotions.com.au
Talking Emotions Fitzroy
Level 1, 411 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy VIC 3065
