Natalie Janinski

Natalie Janinski is an ACA counsellor who describes herself as a lived experience practitioner. She focuses on helping people who are overwhelmed by stress, anxiety, relationship strain, family conflict, trauma and abuse, and anger. Natalie writes plainly about using experiential methods and body-based techniques to support change.

She explains that some people respond well to experiential therapy because it works with how the brain stores memories. Natalie offers approaches that aim to reduce symptoms such as anxiety, people-pleasing, self-sabotage and depression by engaging bodily and emotional experience rather than only talking. She also uses somatic practices like breathwork, movement informed by yoga, polyvagal techniques and mindful focusing.

Natalie works in a straightforward, down-to-earth way. Sessions tend to focus on what feels most urgent for the person and on practical tools that can be used between meetings. She encourages people to trust their instincts about whether the therapist is the right fit and welcomes brief chats to answer questions before starting.

Her areas of additional focus include attachment and abandonment issues, codependency, communication and control issues, dissociation, eating and food-related concerns, feelings of emptiness, guilt and shame, and forgiveness work. Natalie notes experience with autism and avoidant personality presentations, and with co-morbidity that can make symptoms layered and complex.

She has three years of clinical experience and works from Australia. Sessions and next steps are arranged after a short matching process and scheduling conversation with the therapist.

How Natalie’s approaches translate to online work

Experiential methods focus on activating emotion and memory in the moment, often through guided imagining, felt sensing and directed attention. These practices help people notice patterns such as people-pleasing, avoidance or anxious reactions and create opportunities for change.

Somatic techniques are body-informed practices that include breathwork, yoga-informed movements, polyvagal exercises and mindful focusing. They aim to reduce intense physiological arousal and teach simple self-regulation skills that people can use between sessions.

Finding the right approach is a collaborative process. The therapist will talk with the person about their goals, preferences and how they respond in early sessions, then adapt methods together rather than imposing a single style.

If you are considering online sessions, confirm the session options before booking as formats are not specified here. Online work can make it easier to fit counselling into a busy life, shorten travel time and allow for check-ins that suit a work break or other commitments. It can also make some somatic practices easier to practise in familiar surroundings or allow for sessions without being on camera, depending on what the therapist offers.