Anna O'Donnell | Two Minds

Anna O'Donnell

Mental Health Clinician /

Occupational Therapist

BHSc (OT), GradCertMentalHlth (Child & Adolescent)

Availability

Thursday

Friday

Anna O’Donnell is a registered Occupational Therapist with the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (Occupational Therapy Board of Australia).
Anna is a member of Occupational Therapy Australia and is endorsed as a Better Access to Mental Health (BAMH) Clinician to provide focused psychological strategies as a Medicare provider.
At Two Minds Clinical Practice Anna offers psychosocial assessment and therapy to people aged 11 years and above.

Anna is a Medicare provider, and can see individuals with a Mental Health Care Plan. She also sees individuals with NDIS funding (plan or self-managed only).

Background & Approach

Anna has focused on providing trauma-informed and evidence-based interventions to rural and regional communities since starting her work as a Mental Health Clinician / Occupational Therapist in 2006. Initially, Anna worked in North East Victoria to provide primary school aged children and adolescents with mental health assessments and interventions in the public mental health service. At this time, Anna completed a Graduate Certificate in Mental Health (Child and Adolescent) at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry.

For over a decade Anna has worked with adolescents and their carers in an acute mental health inpatient unit in NSW. Over this time, she has had the opportunity to witness the resilience, creativity and strength of these clients.

Anna can provide evidence-based therapy for those experiencing PTSD, anxiety, depression, grief/loss as well as managing complex mental health presentations.

Anna is also passionate about utilising an OT sensory processing approach, and has over 15 years of experience in assessing sensory processing differences. This can assist people in understanding their sensory processing needs and make sense of behavioural differences (i.e. the need to fidget, the need to cancel out background noise, what leads to behavioural melt downs, etc) in order to optimise daily functioning.

Anna’s practice supports clients to identify and prioritise issues that restrict their participation in everyday living in all occupational areas of life including self-care, leisure and productivity. Anna’s practice is recovery-focused and skills-based, informed by a number of therapeutic frameworks including, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Trauma-informed Stabilisation Treatment (TIST).

Anna also has over 30 years of experience as a musician and creative artist and combines these skills with her therapeutic approach to assist people with building skills in self regulation and mindfulness, when relevant to the client.

Anna believes strongly in the power of learning to notice and using meaningful, doing-based approaches to assist with stabilisation and recovery. Compassion and collaboration are central within the therapeutic relationship.