I'm a therapist. I'm also a human.
Meet Devan
And I don't think the two need to be kept entirely separate.
I'm Devan — a psychotherapist and counsellor based in Sydney.
How I found my way here
Becoming a therapist wasn't a sudden career change so much as eventually finding the right name for work I'd been drawn to for a long time.
Before psychotherapy, I spent nearly a decade working in universities in the United States, primarily in student success, academic support and student affairs.
I worked with people navigating academic difficulty, relationships, identity, independence, uncertainty, failure, success, enormous life transitions — and plenty of moments when the thing someone initially came in to talk about wasn't really the thing they needed to talk about.
Eventually, I became increasingly interested in the person underneath the problem we were supposedly trying to solve.
A little about the human outside the therapy room
I'm originally from North Carolina in the United States and now call Sydney home.
Before moving to Australia, life took me through North Carolina, Boston and Rhode Island — along with universities, student affairs, music, hospitality, writing and eventually psychotherapy.
I'm a sociologist, an enthusiastic traveller and someone who can become disproportionately excited about a good roller coaster.
I’m also a dog dad to my Italian Greyhound, Potato.
Basically, I contain multitudes.
So do you. That's kind of the point.
What therapy with me is like
My work is primarily person-centred, relational and attachment-informed, with trauma-informed and integrative approaches woven through it.
That's therapist language for something fairly simple:
I want to understand what it's like to be you.
We'll pay attention to what's happening in your life now, but we'll also get curious about the experiences and relationships that helped shape how you learned to move through the world.
I don't believe my job is to tell you how you should live your life.
My job is to help create the kind of relationship where we can understand it together.
I believe therapy works best when it feels like a genuine relationship between two people.
That means I'll listen carefully. I'll get curious. I'll notice patterns. I'll probably ask you to slow down when you race past something important.
I'll also laugh with you.
I won't sit silently across from you while you wonder what I'm thinking, and I'm not particularly interested in pretending therapists somehow stop being human when we enter the room.
You bring your humanity. I'll bring mine. We'll start there.
Training & experience
I am completing a Master of Psychotherapy and Counselling at Western Sydney University, with completion anticipated in 2026.
My previous postgraduate training includes a Master of Education in Higher Education Student Affairs, and I hold a Bachelor of Science in Sociology.
Before training as a psychotherapist, I spent nearly a decade working professionally in higher education in roles spanning student success, academic coaching and advising, student affairs, university teaching, peer mentoring, orientation and student life.
My psychotherapy training includes supervised clinical practice working with adults across a range of concerns and life experiences.
Professional memberships
Student Member — Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA)
Membership No. 24456
Student Member — Australian Counselling Association (ACA)
Membership No. S84331
I practice within my current level of training and professional scope and receive ongoing clinical supervision.
You don't need to decide whether I'm the right therapist from a website.
Finding a therapist is personal.
Qualifications matter. Experience matters. Approach matters.
But so does whether sitting in a room together feels right.
That's why I offer a free 15-minute conversation before we begin.
You can tell me a little about what's bringing you to therapy. You can ask questions. We can get a sense of whether working together feels like a good fit.