About Michaela

Michaela Lakota

Clinical Psychologist

BSci - Psych (Hons), GDip Psych, MPsych (Clin)

Michaela is a warm, down-to-earth psychologist with a focus on teaching evidence-based skills and practices to help her clients cope better with the challenges of life. Michaela spent five years living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, giving her a unique perspective on cultural, religious, and social issues and their impacts on mental health across various life stages. Michaela has extensive experience working in private practice helping her clients with a wide range of difficulties including coping with feelings of stress, grief, anxiety and depression; managing challenging behaviours such as self-harm, substance use and eating difficulties; and building better relationships with others. 

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Michaela integrates a variety of treatment approaches including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) and positive psychology techniques. She is especially passionate about mindfulness, both as a personal meditation practice and as a way of helping others learn to be with themselves in the hard times and use these challenges as springboards to enact change. 

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Michaela has worked in a variety of settings including a hospital community clinic assessing primary school-aged children with learning, behavioural or mood difficulties, and a university counselling clinic helping young adults with self-esteem and study-related difficulties. Michaela also has extensive experience running Dialetical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) groups and individual DBT therapy. 

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Michaela has also taught mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques (MBSR) to groups of adolescents and adults, guest lectured in the undergraduate psychology program at HELP University in Malaysia and presented workshops on children’s mental health difficulties to parents and teachers. 

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Michaela is a fully registered and endorsed Clinical Psychologist with the Psychology Board of Australia. She is a member of the Australian Psychological Society and an Affiliate of the Clinical College.