Trauma & C-PTSD Counselling. Melbourne & Online
You might recognise yourself here
Many people who come to me for trauma counselling don't immediately call it trauma. They come because they're exhausted, or stuck, or because their relationships keep going wrong in the same way. Over time, we find out there's a thread running underneath all of it.
You might be here because:
You grew up with a parent who was emotionally unavailable, critical, or unpredictable, and you're still managing the fallout
You've been told you're "too sensitive" or "too reactive," but nobody's ever helped you understand why
You experienced something as a child or young adult that you've never fully processed, abuse, neglect, chaos, loss
You find yourself in patterns you can't break, relationships, self-sabotage, shutting down when you need to open up
You've been diagnosed with C-PTSD, or you recognise the symptoms even without a label
You experienced harm within a religious or faith community, and it's left something hard to name
You're living with chronic illness or disability, and the emotional weight of that is something you haven't fully been able to address
You don't need to have lived through a single dramatic event. Complex trauma is usually quieter than that, and much harder to shake.
What is Complex PTSD (C-PTSD)?
Complex PTSD is different from the trauma most people picture. It doesn't usually come from one event. It comes from prolonged exposure to experiences that overwhelmed your ability to cope, often in childhood, often in environments that were meant to be safe.
This might include emotional neglect, inconsistent or frightening parenting, abuse of any kind, growing up in a home shaped by addiction or mental illness, or any prolonged situation where you didn't feel safe and had no way out.
The result isn't just a set of memories. It's a way of being in the world, one that made complete sense at the time, and now keeps you stuck.
C-PTSD can look like:
Difficulty trusting people, even when you want to
Intense emotional reactions that feel out of proportion, or no emotion at all
A persistent, low-level sense of shame or worthlessness
Feeling like you don't know who you are, or like you're performing a version of yourself
Physical symptoms, tension, exhaustion and hypervigilance that have no clear medical cause
Relationships that start well and then collapse in familiar ways
If any of this resonates, you're not broken. Your nervous system learned to protect you. What we do together is help you understand those patterns, and slowly, build new ones.
How trauma counselling works here
My approach is based on Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), a collaborative, relational framework that I've found particularly well-suited to trauma and C-PTSD. It's not about reliving what happened. It's about mapping the patterns that came from it, understanding where they started, and building a new way forward together.
Here's how we work:
We start at the surface. Before we go anywhere deep, we build a clear picture of what's actually happening in your life right now, the patterns, the triggers, the reactions that aren't serving you. This gives us a map to work from, and it means you're always in control of where we go.
We make sense of it together. CAT is collaborative, not me analysing you from above, but the two of us working as a team to understand how your past shaped your present. When patterns start to make sense, they lose some of their power.
We go at your pace. Trauma work should never feel like it's being done to you. You stay in control of how deep we go and when. There's no pressure to share anything before you're ready.
We work toward something real. Not just coping. Not just managing. A life that feels more like yours, more connected, more grounded, with more choice in how you respond to what comes at you.
About your counsellor
I'm David Denoux, an accredited counsellor based in Caulfield, Melbourne, and available online across Australia.
I'm not approaching trauma from a textbook. I've done my own below-the-surface work, navigating a life-changing MS diagnosis, building a new career, working through the patterns that came from my own childhood. I know what it actually takes to go to the places this work asks you to go.
I'm a member of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA), currently completing a Master of Counselling at Edith Cowan University (graduating 2027), and have trained in Cognitive Analytic Therapy with additional trauma-informed approaches.
I work with adults across Melbourne and online, and I offer a free 15-minute phone call so you can get a sense of whether this is the right fit, before committing to anything.
Please note: I am a counsellor, not a psychologist. If you're unsure whether counselling is the right support for your situation, I'm happy to discuss this on our first call.
Practical details
Face-to-face sessions at 223 North Road, Caulfield South VIC 3162 (available Saturdays)
Online: Secure video sessions available on evenings and Thursdays, from anywhere in Australia
Session length: 50 minutes
Fee: $150 per session
First step: lets have a phone call to see if we're a good fit.
Ready to start?
The first step is just a conversation. My number is 0428 652 872. We can talk about what you're dealing with and whether I can help.