Leigh is a Nurse Practitioner with over 25 years of mental health nursing experience.  She has been a NP since 2013 and most of her career has been based in regional Australia, specialising in emergency mental health and psychotherapy outpatient clinics.  She holds a passion for consultation liaison – the vulnerability to mental health distress for people with primary physical health deterioration, such as chronic disease, dialysis or cancer treatments. 

Leigh integrates therapies to tailor a treatment plan to best suit your circumstances.  She is extensively trained in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and utilises this in combination with Acceptance Commitment Therapy and Internal Family Systems informed language.

She believes strongly that regional Australia needs equitable access to specialists, close to home and acknowledges the difficulty sometimes in accessing fully private and trusted confidantes within small communities.

Leigh provides a person-centred and recovery orientated approach to a variety of mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, mood disorders, hearing voices,  life transitions, developmental or complex trauma, suicidality, or deliberate self-harm as major coping strategies.

Leigh has a sensitivity to the oft misunderstood convergence of neurodivergence with mental health distress.

Whilst, Leigh does have experience with eating disorders and or perinatal mental health, depending on a comprehensive assessment of goals of intervention, she may recommend referral for further specialist approaches. This may also be true of primary gambling addictions.

Leigh is the current Chair of the SA Branch of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses and current proxy Chair of the Consultation Liaison Special Interest Group of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses.