How this site works

We don’t provide therapy. We help you work out whether it might help, what kind might suit you, what it costs and how to start. You can use the guide, Where to from here?, which asks a few questions and shows you options, or you can browse everything on the site yourself. Nothing you enter is stored, and we never ask who you are.

Three ways through the guide

The first question asks what brings you here, and your answer decides which way the guide goes.

For yourself. The main path, described below. It ends with several approaches that might suit you, and what to do next.
If you’re in therapy now and having doubts. The guide asks what’s got you wondering, what seems to be getting in the way, and whether you’ve been able to raise it with your therapist. Often the most useful next step is that conversation, so the results start with what to read and how to bring it up. If something in therapy doesn’t feel safe to raise with your therapist, the results never suggest that you do. You can go on to see other approaches if you want to.
If you’re worried about someone else. The guide asks about what you’ve noticed them doing, rather than what they might be feeling, and what would help you most. The results cover talking to them, what might help them, and support for you. If you say you’re worried about their safety, or about safety around them, the guide shows you who to contact before anything else. If they’re under 18, the results point to their GP (general practitioner) For most people, where getting help starts. A GP can write a Mental Health Treatment Plan, prescribe medication and refer you on, and some are trained to deliver a small number of structured therapy sessions themselves. More in the jargon decoder and to youth services.

What the guide asks

On the path for yourself, the guide asks about four things, because what’s going on is only part of what decides what might help.

What you’re dealing with. In everyday words, such as not being able to switch your mind off, or not feeling much of anything. You can pick more than one. If none of the options fit, you can say that instead. If you’ve been given a diagnosis, you can choose that instead, and the guide uses it to show you therapies that have been researched for that diagnosis.
What you’ve already tried. Someone who’s done Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) A structured, practical form of talking therapy. It's built on a simple idea: what you think affects how you feel, and both affect what you do. More in the jargon decoder (CBT) twice and is still stuck needs different options from someone starting out. If something didn’t work, the guide asks what happened, because the reason points somewhere.
How you like to work. Some people want to talk things through, some want practical skills, and some find their body or their story is the way in.
What’s practical. Cost, Medicare Australia's public health insurance scheme. For mental health, it gives rebates on sessions with psychologists and some other professionals, usually through a Mental Health Treatment Plan. More in the jargon decoder , how long you can wait, how much time and energy you have, and whether you’d rather meet in person or online.

It also asks how long things have been this way. Near the end, it asks whether anything else applies to you, such as being under 18, autistic or a veteran. You can skip that question. If you say you’re under 18, the guide shows youth services first.

If you’d rather describe how you feel than find yourself in a list, you can start with I’m feeling… instead. That opens the word mapper, where you choose words for how you feel, and the guide carries on from there.

The path for yourself is 11 to 14 questions, depending on your answers, and two of them are optional. The other two paths are shorter. Partway through, you can ask to see the options so far. You can change any earlier answer, or leave the guide and browse, at any point.

If you start the guide from a page you’re reading, it picks up where you are, so you don’t answer questions the page has already covered.

What it shows you

The guide shows you several options, each with a short reason: people who describe what you’ve described often find these worth looking at. It always shows more than one, because what people go through rarely fits one label, and because the choice is yours. A side-by-side table sets out the same details for each, so you can compare them.

Each option leads to a page that explains it properly: what it involves, what the research says, what it costs, and how to find it in Australia. You can download a summary of your options to take to a GP or a first appointment.

What it never does

It never diagnoses you or suggests a condition you might have. If you already have a diagnosis, you can tell the guide, and it uses what you’ve been told.
It never scores you. Your answers aren’t added up to a total, and nothing turns on a cut-off.
It never recommends a particular therapist or clinic.
It never gives you a live answer. The guide is laid out like a chat, with its messages on one side and your answers on the other, but it isn’t one. There’s no chatbot, and no AI writes a response to you. You answer by choosing from set options, and there’s nowhere to type, because the guide can only respond to answers it was written for. It follows fixed paths, and everything it shows was written, checked and approved in advance. Our editorial policy explains how every page is made.

The guide can’t tell you what’s right for you. Only a health professional who knows your situation can do that. This isn’t therapy has more on what the site is and isn’t.

Why the person matters more than the method

Research on therapy finds that your relationship with the person you see matters a great deal, whatever Approach (modality) The kind of therapy someone uses, such as CBT or psychodynamic therapy. You'll also see it called a modality. More in the jargon decoder they use. So the guide doesn’t try to find you the perfect therapy. What it can do is help you understand which approaches are likely to suit you, which narrows the field, since nobody can try out every therapist. Why who you see matters more than what they do explains this, and it shows up on every path through the guide.

Your answers

Your answers stay in your browser. They aren’t sent to us or stored anywhere, and they’re gone when you close the page. A downloaded summary is created in your browser and saved only to your device. Privacy has the details, including what our hosting and analytics providers handle.

If things are hard right now

Every screen of the guide has a Get help now button. It goes straight to crisis services and asks nothing else. Crisis and emergency support has the full list.