Shari Kelly

Shari is an experienced Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with more than 20 years’ experience working in mental health. She has worked across private practice, community mental health and specialist services in Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, bringing broad clinical experience and a warm, grounded approach to her work.

Shari has a particular interest and specialist experience in trauma and its lasting impact on how we think, feel, relate to others and see ourselves. Trauma does not always look like trauma. Its effects can emerge years later, including through anxiety, depression, shame, people-pleasing, difficulty setting boundaries, emotional overwhelm, harsh self-criticism and relationship difficulties. She works with people who have experienced different forms of trauma, including domestic and family violence, narcissistic abuse and coercive control, sexual violence and childhood sexual abuse, developmental trauma, health and birth-related trauma, and work-related difficulties.

Shari also works with a wide range of mental health and life difficulties, including anxiety, depression, stress, emotional overwhelm, low self-worth, relationship difficulties, grief and loss, and life transitions. Sometimes there is a clear reason for how you are feeling; at other times, you may simply know that you are struggling, feeling stuck or no longer feel like yourself.

Therapy with Shari is about more than simply managing symptoms. Together, you can begin to understand what is driving your difficulties, make sense of patterns that have developed as ways of coping, and develop a stronger and more compassionate relationship with yourself. 

Shari is a full member of the EMDR Association of Australia and has undertaken extensive advanced training in EMDR therapy, which she uses to help process distressing and traumatic experiences that continue to affect how you feel, think and respond in the present.

She also draws on Schema Therapy, Psychodynamic and Attachment-Based Therapy, CBT and Parts Work, depending on what is most helpful for each individual. These approaches can help identify deeper beliefs and patterns, understand how earlier relationships may influence the present, develop more helpful ways of responding to difficult thoughts and emotions, and build greater compassion for the different parts of yourself that have developed to cope.

Shari’s style is warm, down-to-earth, collaborative and deeply respectful. She takes the time to understand what you are experiencing, how you have learned to cope, and what may be contributing to your difficulties.

Shari provides neurodiversity-affirming therapy and an inclusive, affirming space for LGBTQIA+ clients. She is a Medicare provider and welcomes referrals under Mental Health Treatment Plans.

Outside the therapy room, Shari enjoys Pilates, silver jewellery making, live music and the performing arts.