About Melissa
Melissa Stokes offers calm, practical help for people facing anxiety, stress, grief and phobias. She addresses mood concerns such as depression and bipolar, plus ADHD, sleep and eating difficulties. Melissa is inclusive of LGBT people and supports those coping with life changes and trauma.
Melissa brings 25 years of experience in Australian mental health services. She has worked across community mental health, youth justice, hospitals, sexual assault services and public and independent practice.
Background and approach
Her background includes both psychology work and social work under the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) and AHPRA registration. Her style is warm and collaborative. She listens first, then helps people build practical skills they can use between sessions.
She blends straightforward talk with skills training so people feel less overwhelmed. Melissa draws on a range of therapies to suit each person’s needs, including cognitive approaches, acceptance strategies, emotion skills and attachment-focused work. Sessions often include teaching coping tools, practising new ways of responding, and setting small steps towards change.
She also supervises students and other clinicians, and keeps up professional development and research work. Outside of work she enjoys hiking, foraging, music, cooking, yoga and time with her dogs.
How Melissa uses approaches online
Melissa commonly uses Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help people notice difficult thoughts and feelings without being driven by them, and to choose actions that match their values. ACT can help with anxiety, mood issues and coping with life changes.She also draws on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) to identify unhelpful thinking patterns and practise different responses, which is useful for phobias, anxiety and sleep or eating concerns. Attachment-Based Therapy informs her focus on relationship patterns and how early bonds influence current behaviour and emotions.
Finding the right approach is part of the work. Melissa will discuss options and tailor methods based on each person’s goals, needs and preferences. She approaches treatment as a collaboration, checking in about what helps and changing course when something isn’t working.
Online sessions are offered by video call, phone, live chat or text-based messaging to make therapy easier to fit into busy lives. Video calls suit in-depth work and face-to-face connection, phone sessions can be used when bandwidth is limited, and chat or messaging are handy for brief check-ins or between-session support. These options aim to increase flexibility and accessibility while keeping the focus on real-world tools and progress.
Questions people ask
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What this therapist works with
Most often
Also listed
- Abandonment
- ADHD
- Aging and geriatric issues
- Attachment issues
- Bipolar disorder
- Blended family issues
- Body image
- Cancer
- Career difficulties
- Caregiver issues and stress
- Co-morbidity
- Coaching
- Codependency
- Commitment issues
- Communication problems
- Control issues
- Coping with life changes
- Coping with natural or human-caused disaster
- Dependent personality
- Depression
- Dissociation
- Divorce and separation
- Domestic violence
- Eating disorders
- Family of origin issues
- Family problems
- First responder issues
- Forgiveness
- Gender dysphoria
- Grief
- Guilt and shame
- Impulsivity
- Infidelity
- Isolation / loneliness
- Jealousy
- Life purpose
- Midlife crisis
- Narcissism
- Obsessions, compulsions, and OCD
- Panic disorder and panic attacks
- Paranoia
- Parenting issues
- Personality disorders
- Phobias
- Polyamory / non-monogamous relationships
- Post-traumatic stress
- Postpartum depression
- Pregnancy and childbirth
- Prejudice and discrimination
- Process addiction (porn, exercise, gambling)
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
- Self esteem
- Self-harm
- Self-love
- Sexual assault and abuse
- Sexuality
- Sleeping disorders
- Social anxiety and phobia
- Somatization
- Trichotillomania
- Veteran and Armed Forces Issues
- Women's issues
- Workplace issues
- Young adult issues
Therapeutic approaches
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Attachment-Based Therapy
- Client-Centered Therapy
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
- Emotionally-Focused Therapy (EFT)
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
- Mindfulness Therapy
- Motivational Interviewing
- Narrative Therapy
- Psychodynamic Therapy
- Solution-Focused Therapy
- Somatic Therapy
- Trauma-Focused Therapy
- Experience
- 25 years
- Licensed
- Languages
- English
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