Sarah Howden-Ferme

Psychotherapist
Clinical Counsellor

Psychotherapist | Clinical Counsellor

Working with trauma, Addiction, AgEing,
and Boarding School Syndrome

Modalities

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS)
Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)
Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
Mindfulness

About Sarah …

Sarah is a Psychotherapist / Clinical counsellor, specialising in trauma on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. She is a Masters qualified accredited therapist with the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) and the Australian Counselling Association (ACA) with over fifteen years of experience in the allied health profession. She has worked therapeutically with clients across the private and charity sectors in Australia and the UK, in private practice, private hospitals, and community organisations. Sarah holds a BA in Sociology, a Graduate Diploma in Rehabilitation Counselling, and a Masters in Counselling.

Sarah has a history of working in trauma-informed care, with adults impacted by trauma, complexPTSD, mental health challenges, addiction, and Boarding School Syndrome. Sarah has gained extensive experience in acute mental health, addiction, and rehabilitation, supporting clients with individual psychotherapy, group therapy, psycho-education, and outpatient day programs. Sarah further supports the aging population navigate major life transitions, grief, medical diagnoses, and trauma resurgence.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor Arts (Sociology/History) UNSW

  • GradDip RehabCouns USyd

  • Master of Counselling UC

Further training, memberships and affiliations »

When it comes to therapy I…

  • work with a gentle, non-judgemental approach

  • believe healing is a process of rediscovery

  • feel clients are the experts in their own lives

  • look at a person’s early years and formative relationships with caregivers as these experiences help shape their world view and relational patterns

  • work with reconnecting the parts of the individual impacted by unresolved conflicts, trauma, grief, loss, abandonment, and neglect

  • support clients to reclaim a sense of agency in their own life

  • utilise evidence-based modalities

  • facilitate individuals to find self-awareness, perspective, balance, and create meaningful change in their lives

Who could benefit?

Therapy is a collaborative process where a client and therapist work together to provide an environment for curiosity, self-compassion and healing. Understanding patterns of behaviour allows individuals to connect with themselves and make choices that increase a sense of agency in their lives.

I support individuals with:

  • Depression and Anxiety

  • PTSD, Complex Trauma

  • Grief and Loss

  • Addiction

  • ADHD

  • Physical, emotional and sexual abuse

  • Stress and overwhelm

  • Life transitions - adjustment

  • Identity issues - sexuality, sobriety, post divorce, diagnosis

  • Boarding School trauma - supporting Boarding School Syndrome

  • Post inpatient mental health admission

  • Aging - purpose, accepting diagnosis, grief and loss, residence moves, emotional impacts of physical restrictions, spirituality.

  • Self esteem

More about Therapy
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“In our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. An occasional sharp wintering would do us good […] We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.”

— Katherine May, ‘Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times’

FURTHER TRAINING

  • Trauma, Privilege & Abandonment Clinical Challenges; Boarding School Syndrome, Nick Duffell UK, 2023

  • Introduction to Boarding School Syndrome, Karen Macmillan, UK, 2023

  • Trauma Informed Practice for Mental Health Clinicians, Novo Psych, Dr Holloway 2025

  • Holding the Work: Sustainable approaches to Trauma Responsive Practice, PACFA Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, 2026

  • Conference: Transform Trauma Oxford; Science, Spirit and the Body: The Synthesis of Healing, UK, 2026

  • CBT for Trauma, Psychwire

  • The IFS Clinicians Guide: Restoring Self, Healing Trauma and Deepening Therapy: Internal Family Systems training with Dr Frank Anderson and Dr Diane Poole Heller.

  • Complex PTSD: Perspective of a Clinician with Lived Experience - PACFA Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia, 2026

  • Critical Incident Stress Debriefing

  • Lifeline Training Program

memberships and affiliations

  • PACFA - Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia

    - Certified Practicing Counsellor No: 32597

  • ACA - Australian Counselling Association

  • ARCAP - Australian Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists

  • ACON - Australia’s largest community based LGBTQ+ health and HIV organisation

  • Sydney North Health Network (SNHN)

  • Blue Knot Foundation for Complex Trauma

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away”

Gail Honeyman, ‘Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine’

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