Rikki-May Nielsen Psychotherapy & Counselling

31/03/2026

When we fully stay with what is, something shifts organically 🌼🌼🌼

31/03/2026

What does it mean to be emotionally regulated?!
For many of us- this will become our life’s work.🌼🌼🌼

17/02/2026

💪🏼In line with my research paper; “The Human Behind the Performance: Gestalt Therapy and Athlete Adversity”, I believe Athlete mental health isn’t just about performance.

It’s about identity.
It’s about pressure.
It’s about injury.
It’s about retirement.
It’s about being 14 and carrying expectations that feel bigger than your body.
It’s about being sidelined and wondering who you are without your sport.
It’s about partners, parents and loved ones quietly holding it all together behind the scenes.

I support:

• Junior athletes navigating pressure, comparison and confidence
• Injured athletes facing uncertainty, frustration and loss
• Retired athletes redefining identity and purpose
• The loved ones of athletes managing the emotional load of someone else’s career

Strong mental health isn’t just about better performance.
It’s about wellbeing, relationships, resilience and a sense of self that exists beyond the scoreboard.

There is always a human behind the performance.
And they deserve support too 🌼

16/02/2026

You don’t have to navigate it alone.

I’m Rikki, a registered psychotherapist supporting adults, young people, and athletes to improve emotional wellbeing, navigate life’s challenges, and build healthier relationships.

✨ Relational & collaborative
✨ Trauma-informed
✨ In-person (Cabarita Beach) or Zoom
✨ Beach-walk sessions available

Start with a FREE 20-minute phone consultation to see if we’re the right fit.

👉 Click the link to book your free consult.

I’m a Gestalt psychotherapist and counsellor working with adults and young people who want to improve their emotional wellbeing, navigate life’s challenges and develop healthier relationships with themselves and others. My approach is relational, collaborative and tailored to each person.

04/02/2026

Self-supports for emotional and physiological regulation 👌🏽🌼

24/01/2026

🌼A person’s set of values refers to the deeply held beliefs and principles that guide how they make sense of the world, relate to others, and decide what matters most in their life.

🌼At a broad level, values act as an internal compass. They influence priorities, motivations, choices, and behaviour- often quietly and automatically. People tend to feel more congruent, grounded, and alive when their actions align with their values, and more distressed or conflicted when there is a mismatch.

From a psychological perspective, values are:
• Relational and contextual- shaped through family, culture, social norms, life experiences, trauma, privilege, and oppression. They are not formed in isolation.
• Emotionally charged- values are linked to feelings of meaning, purpose, pride, guilt, or shame. Strong emotional reactions often signal that a value has been touched.
• Relatively stable, but not fixed- core values tend to endure, yet they can evolve across the lifespan, particularly through major transitions (parenthood, loss, illness, career change).
• Revealed through action- what a person consistently chooses, protects, avoids, or sacrifices for often says more about their values than what they say they value.

🌼From a Gestalt lens, values are understood as part of the organismic self-regulation process-they emerge in relationship with the field and are continually clarified through awareness. Rather than being imposed or moralised, values are explored phenomenologically: What feels right? What supports aliveness? What matters here and now?

🌼In therapeutic work, bringing values into awareness can:
• Support decision-making
• Clarify internal conflict
• Strengthen self-support
• Restore a sense of meaning and direction, especially during periods of anxiety, identity loss, or transition

🌼In short, a person’s values are not just ideas they hold- they are lived, embodied, and relational guides that shape the quality and direction of their life.

19/01/2026

Hi beautiful peeps, it’s me Rikki 👋🏼 ➡️ I’m a Gestalt psychotherapist and counsellor working with adults and young people who want to improve their emotional wellbeing, navigate life’s challenges and develop healthier relationships with themselves and others. My approach is relational, collaborative and tailored to each person.
​
➡️Alongside my general practice, I also support athletes and sporting teams, helping junior athletes entering elite pathways, injured athletes during recovery, and retired athletes adjusting to life after competition. My focus is on wellbeing and resilience, not just performance.

➡️As we are located just steps from the beach, I also offer sessions outdoors - whether you prefer a gentle beach-walk or a relaxed ocean-gazing session, we can take the space you need to reflect, pause and connect.

Rikki 🌼🌼🌼

16/01/2026

💪🏼 Resilience is often praised as strength, the ability to endure, adapt, and keep going.
But sometimes what we call resilience is actually tolerance.

😓 Tolerance can look like coping, functioning, or “being strong,” while quietly disconnecting from our needs.
It’s when the body adapts to what is too much, too often, for too long.

🌼In Gestalt terms, this isn’t failure, it’s a creative adjustment.
A wise organism doing its best to survive within the conditions it has.

➡️The risk comes when tolerance becomes normalised.
When endurance replaces choice.
When survival is mistaken for wellbeing.

🫶🏼True resilience includes awareness.
It includes the capacity to sense, to respond, and to change what is no longer supportive.

Sometimes growth doesn’t mean becoming more resilient.
It means no longer tolerating what harms us.

16/01/2026

Self-supports are unique to each body and nervous system. When used intentionally and often enough, they can strengthen a sense of self-love and build a greater capacity to meet and recover from adversity 🤎💁🏽‍♀️🌼💐

31/12/2025

End-of-Year Reflection 🐍

As you move toward 2026, take a moment to pause and check in with yourself. 🐎

• What did I move through this year?
• What am I proud of?
• What am I ready to let go of?
• What do I want to welcome into my life?
• How can I care for my mental wellbeing moving forward?

Take your time. There’s no right or wrong way to reflect ✌🏽
www.rmntherapy.com.au

31/12/2025

After a really challenging 2026 ❤️‍🩹😅, I’m stepping into the new year with a new mantra:
“I accept the great adventure of being me.”
Words famously attributed to French existential philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir - and ones that feel especially meaningful right now 🫶🏼

09/12/2025

With this in mind, building strong interpersonal skills is wise. The quality of our relationships might just determine the quality of our life.