Are you ready to take back control and set yourself free?

If you’re like most of my clients, the number one thing you may be feeling right now is stuck.

You might be feeling like you’re not living the life you were meant to be living, like there’s something holding you back from reaching your full potential. Maybe anxiety is stopping you from achieving the things you know you’re capable of, or you feel like you’re trapped living behind a mask of who you’re supposed to be, instead of who you really are. Yet no matter how much you educate yourself or try to talk it out with psychologists, you just can’t seem to shift it.

I understand how you feel

Hi, I’m Sarah Tuckett. For 7 years I’ve been working as a somatic psychotherapist, helping clients with anxiety to get unstuck and change the way they feel. As someone who has suffered from anxiety and depression myself and supported hundreds of clients, I understand exactly how it feels. Over 15 years ago now, I experienced a crisis of my own, stuck in a job that drained my soul.

DOES MY STORY SOUND FAMILIAR?

Stuck in a Crisis

Chronic Stress

Anxiety

Depression

Burnout

In 2006, I found myself in the admin job from hell.

After 3 years of trying to find my feet as a new migrant, I finally found a permanent job in Australia. The people were lovely, but the workload was stressful. After a month I knew it wasn’t right for me, but there was no way I was going to give up the security. After nearly a year of chronic stress I fell into depression. (This is a well-worn path: chronic stress leads to anxiety, which over time leads to depression and exhaustion). Normally an energetic, smiley person, I was exhausted, had no motivation, didn’t want to see my friends, and was starting to have outrageously catastrophic thoughts.

Stuck and scared to make any sort of change (many of my clients relate to this!), my partner marched me to my Integrative GP who told me that in Chinese medicine we all have two batteries: an everyday battery called “Chi”, and a long-term battery called “Jing”. If we use up our short-term battery we start eating into the long-term one – mine was all but gone. Finally I gave up the job and went to South East Asia to recover. It was there I experienced the magic of Laos massage. It had such a calming effect that I decided to study massage and turn it into a business. But that wasn’t the end of my journey. In every massage session, clients would offload their problems to me. I’d hear the tension in their voices and feel it in their backs. I’d relax their muscles and their mind in the hour that they were there, but next fortnight they’d be back with the same aches and pains.

I realised that their mind was stronger than my massage thumb.

I realised I needed to explore the body-mind connection further.

In 2012 a friend introduced me to a Somatic Psychotherapist

It felt like my solution to connect the body and the mind together. I finished my Diploma and became a somatic psychotherapist at the end of 2015 but this wasn’t the end of my body-mind studies. In 2018 I graduated from a Masters of Mental Health (Psychotherapy) from UQ, and in 2020 I completed the most fun qualification I’ve ever done – Advanced Clinical Skills in Somatics and Dance-Movement Therapy.

There’s still a lot of stigma around going to see a counsellor or somatic psychotherapist. Some people don’t understand why I work with the body as well, they just want to talk. But it’s my goal in life to educate as many people as I can about the mind-body link so that when they feel anxious or depressed, they think about moving and breathing first, instead of reaching for a pill or a glass of wine.

To this day I continue to learn new somatic psychotherapy and counselling techniques and attend professional trainings because I’m still curious about this body-mind connection. We still don’t know all the answers, but neuroscience is now backing up what body-oriented therapists have been saying for years.

My qualifications include:

Master of Mental Health (Psychotherapy) – University of Queensland (Dec 2018)
Graduate Diploma of Somatics & Dance Movement Therapy (2023)
Integrative Somatic Trauma Therapy (2021)
Working with Complex Trauma (2021)
The Body Mind Approach (working with persistent physical symptoms) Level 1 and 2 (2021)
Advanced Clinical Skills in Somatics and Dance-Movement Therapy (2020)
Diploma of Integrated Somatic Psychotherapy (2015) and Advanced Diploma of Integrated Somatic Psychotherapy (2019)
Compassion-Focussed Therapy (2019)
Personalised Integrative Therapy (2018)
Embodied Couples Work – Level 1 (2018)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Anxiety and Depression (2017)
Yoga Nidra Teacher Training (2018)
Cert IV in Training and Assessment (2016)
Nia Blue Belt (somatic movement therapy) (2016)

I am a Clinical Professional member of PACFA (Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia) membership no’ 23732; and a Professional member of DTAA (Dance Therapy Association of Australia) DTAA (DMT Prof) Reg.No. 223-02.

From my previous careers:

Masters of Environmental Management – University of Queensland
Graduate Certificate in Sustainability – Murdoch University
Bachelor of Arts (Modern Languages) – Manchester University, UK
Diploma of Remedial Massage – QAcademy

I use evidence based, effective therapies including

Somatic Psychotherapy

Dance Movement Therapy

Compassion-focused Therapy (counselling)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (counselling)

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (counselling)

Learn about how I work

My Personality and Beliefs

My clients describe me as: “Warm and welcoming, genuine and super friendly. Compassionate. You are human, you connect with me on such a down to earth level.” I believe I bring joy to therapy where possible.

I really care about my clients. I think about them all the time. Randomly someone will pop into my head as I’m buying cereal or cat food! I’m really curious about people. I believe in equality and I work people from any gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and age (above 18).

I’m an eternal student. I’m always studying something! I’ll never stop being curious about the body-mind connection. I love seeing clients transform before my eyes, becoming braver, stronger and more connected to their inner world.

My Vision

My vision is for people to recognise that there is no separation between the body and the mind and realise the impact they can have on their mental experience or emotions by becoming more embodied and changing their breathing and posture.

My Mission

My mission is to help the western world understand the link between the physical body and mental wellbeing, by bringing body-centred therapy and movement to the mainstream, so that they feel calmer, more connected to self and others, and feel vibrantly alive again.

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