About Us

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Pandora Psychology is a private practice set in the beautiful Western Suburbs. Located in the Jamboree Centre, our newly fit-out, bespoke therapy rooms are optimised for our clients’ privacy and comfort.

Pandora Psychology is dedicated to providing our clients with a warm, non-judgmental and inclusive space in which to unpack their experience. Using only current, evidence-based and clinically supported therapies, our psychologists seek to ensure that each client feels seen, heard and valued by using a therapeutic approach that is tailored to each client’s needs, preferences and goals for therapy, and includes strategies that are most likely to be successful in the context of our clients’ day to day lives. 

We strongly believe in each individual’s intrinsic worth, their right to have their experience acknowledged and validated, and in their capacity to grow and create meaningful change in their lives. We genuinely care about our clients' well-being and are honoured to be a part of their journey towards a more meaningful and fulfilling life. 

Pandora Psychology seeks to improve and enhance the relationships, connections and meaning in our clients’ lives. Whether that is connections to yourself, to friends and family, to colleagues and your career, or to your romantic partner, Pandora Psychology can help you develop understanding around the challenges you are facing, and the frameworks and skills you need to overcome these challenges, address areas of distress and to create more meaningful connections to increase the vitality in your life. 

Pandora Psychology strives to be a safe space for you to open up. 

We have to know before we can grow.

Most of us have our own metaphorical “Pandora’s Box”; a collection of thoughts, feelings, experiences and memories we find difficult and distressing to acknowledge. Most people have tried many strategies, with varying degrees of success, to cope with the distress that the contents create. But, just like Pandora in the Greek myth, even when we are very good at ignoring or pushing aside the box, the contents continue to have an impact on the choices we make and our overall well-being. 

To order to identify what needs to change in our lives so that we can have greater choice over our actions, we first need to have the space, and the courage, to unpack our own Pandora’s Box. Only when we know what’s in that box, can we take back our capacity to choose and make meaningful change. Until then, the contents of the box will continue to influence our actions.

At Pandora Psychology we aim to provide you with a non-judgmental, compassionate and safe space to unpack your experience at a pace that works best for you. We want to help you understand what’s in your box and why it’s in there. Then we’ll help you to identify what needs to change in your life in order for you to have the life you seek, and we’ll identify how to make those changes. So that, like Pandora, you too can discover hope.  

Pandora’s Box is a story from Greek Mythology which begins with two Titans; Prometheus and his brother, Epimetheus who switched sides and pledged allegiance to Zeus, the King of the Gods, in the war between the Gods and the Titans. Zeus rewarded the Titan brothers for their service by giving them the task of creating the first creatures to live on Earth.

Prometheus created the first man but disobeyed Zeus by giving man the gift of fire. Zeus decided to punish Prometheus and so created a woman named Pandora with gifts of wisdom, beauty, kindness and generosity and he offered her to Prometheus’s brother, Epimetheus to be his wife. Prometheus warned his brother of Zeus’ trickery but Epimetheus was so taken with Pandora that he willingly married her. 

At their wedding Zeus gifted the newlyweds a special box but warned them never to open it. Pandora had also been created to be curious but, although she longed to know what was in the box, she promised her husband that she would never open it. Despite her determination to ignore the box, it quickly became all she could think about and Pandora tried everything she could to forget about the box and the mystery of its contents. As time went by, she was unable to think of anything but the box and her days revolved around trying to avoid and ignore the box. 

Eventually, out of desperation, Pandora decided that opening the box was the only way to rid herself of her relentless curiosity. So, Pandora opened the box. Out of the box, stinging and biting painfully before flying off into the world, came all of the misery in the world; greed, envy, sadness, hatred, pain, disease, hunger and poverty. Pandora slammed the lid closed in pain and despair. But then she heard a gentle, soft voice calling to her from inside the box and she tentatively opened it once more. This time Pandora found the moth of hope which flew from the box as well, touching and healing Pandora’s wounds, before also flying off into the world. 

The story is often told as a warning about the dangers of curiosity but it is also a wonderful metaphor that highlights the struggles we all have with the way our own human brains are wired. Just as Pandora was created with curiosity, our brains have wiring and purpose that we cannot overcome. Humans are wired to seek safety above all else and are driven to actively avoid anything that is threatening, distressing, or even simply new and different. This includes upsetting thoughts, emotions such as pain, shame, and fear, physical sensations and distressing memories. So, we try to push these uncomfortable experiences away or shove them down into a metaphorical box so that they don’t show up in our day-to-day lives. 

However, as happened for Pandora, avoiding this box and the threatening or uncomfortable things within it, can actually take a lot of our energy and focus. Our brains will try to protect us by reminding us about the threats in the box. When we try to ignore those warnings they just become louder and our lives start to revolve around keeping the box shut tight. The effort it takes to do this can interfere in our lives and our relationships. 

If we truly want to take ownership of our lives, of our choices and the way we show up in our relationships then we need to be willing to engage in self-reflection, which means having the courage to unpack our own Pandora’s Box. 

We know that this can seem overwhelming or scary, but it is possible to lift the lid a little at a time until you can acknowledge everything in your box and learn strategies to manage these unpleasant thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and memories in a more effective manner. 

Only when we know what’s in our box can we truly start to grow. When we are courageous enough to open the box, then we are can start the process of digging down to hope. Hope for a life that’s more intentional, more meaningful and full of vitality.