Personalised Care, By Design

A psychologist who leads with personalisation

Farah is a registered psychologist with 16 years of experience and a deep commitment to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Contextual Behavioural Science (CBS). She has specialised in ACT since 2015, trained at every level, and continues learning through international conferences and workshops.

As the founder of Malaysia’s first ACT centre (2022-2024) and of Forepsych in 2016, Farah has played a key role in growing the ACT community and supporting practitioner development in the region. She now works with individual clients through her private practice in Attadale, WA, and via telehealth across Australia.

Farah is currently completing a PhD in Psychology, supervised by Prof Joseph Ciarrochi, with a scholarship from the Institute of Better Health. Her research is focused on the personalisation of psychological therapy, using data-driven, individual measures to target the processes that matter most for each client. It is the same principle she brings into the therapy room: no two people, and no two treatment plans, are the same.

My Approach

Working from the science of context

I am guided by the philosophy that underpins Contextual Behavioural Science (CBS): every thought, feeling, and behaviour has a function, and exists within a context. From that understanding, clients are not seen as broken, they are seen as trapped in patterns that no longer work for them.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is the therapy that puts this philosophy into practice. Its aim is to build psychological flexibility, so you can live in a way that fits your values and sense of self, even alongside difficult thoughts and feelings.

I stay current through ongoing training and teaching, and draw on my PhD research to bring a more personalised, measurement informed approach to each person I works with.

Working Together

What it’s like to work with me

Expect me to be collaborative, warm, and engaged. I am thoughtful and analytical, but also makes space for emotion, body responses, and the parts of an experience that may not yet have words.

I am trauma informed, and your psychological and emotional safety comes first, always. The work is strengths focused, aimed at building a stronger sense of agency and helping you move toward a life that feels more meaningful and workable for you.

Whether you’re a client or a supervisee, the same values guide the work: respect, authenticity, and a genuine trust in your capacity to learn, grow, and thrive.

Beyond The Therapy Room

A psychologist, and a human being first

I am a parent to a wonderfully wilful child, a lifelong lover of dogs and sport, and someone who spent part of her childhood training to be a professional athlete, a path that taught her discipline, pressure, and pushing through pain long before it taught her psychology.

My compassion is grounded in lived experience as well as training. Later in life, I had lived experience of grief & loss, workplace bullying, domestic violence, narcissistic abuse dynamics in a professional relationship, and institutional betrayal. These experiences shape how she connects with people and how she shows up: with presence, courage, and care.

I founded the Ethics in Action Collective, Malaysia, a not-for-profit with a mission to increase ethical standards in the country and beyond. See www.ethicscollective.org if you are keen to learn more about it.

You may also meet Mr Patz at in-person sessions. He’s a friendly dog who loves people, not a therapy dog.

Heritage & Perspective

A perspective shaped by more than one culture

I bring a multicultural lens to my work, shaped by both my heritage and my upbringing. I am of mixed race, with Chinese and Indian heritage, and I grew up in Malaysia in a household where English was the first language. My parents were educated by British teachers, a legacy of Malaysia’s colonial history, and that shaped our home life around English and Western culture. Growing up, I was immersed in British and American music, film and television, while also living day to day in an Asian culture that was then still developing. That combination gave me a first-hand understanding of both worlds, Western and Eastern, one I’ve carried into how I think about psychology itself. Much of what we teach and practise as clinical psychology was developed in Western, English-speaking countries, largely by researchers who share a narrow set of cultural backgrounds. That doesn’t make it wrong, but it isn’t the whole picture, and it’s something I stay mindful of in the room.

I later moved to Australia as a qualified psychologist, working in Employee Assistance Programs across the state, from mine sites to high-rise offices to correctional facilities, delivering counselling, crisis response and training.

Between my mixed heritage, my migration story, and that breadth of clinical experience, I take a contextual behavioural, process-based approach to therapy: the underlying psychological principles stay the same, but how I apply them is adapted to each client’s own cultural lens, whether or not they’ve thought about it in those terms themselves. Living in multicultural Australia, I’m well placed to support clients working through similar cross-cultural experiences.

Training & Qualifications

Key trainings completed

• Advanced ACT (2015)
• ACT Masterclass (2016)
• Relational Frame Theory (2017)
• DNA-v (2019)
• Mastering Flexible, Process Based ACT Implementation (2019)
• ACT for Trauma (2024)
• Process Based Therapy (2024)
• Clinical Supervision (2025)
• EMDR Level 1 (2026)

In progress: Narcissistic Abuse Treatment, Interpersonal Neurobiology

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Arts (Psychology)
• Bachelor of Business Management
• Master of Clinical Psychology
• PhD in Psychology (in progress)
• Registered Psychologist (AHPRA)

Professional Memberships

APS · AAPi · ACBS · ANZ ACBS · AICD