Vanessa Shevelev
Registered Psychologist · MAPS
B.Sc (Psych) Honours · MPsych (Applied) · PostGradCertEd (Career Development)
Qualifications
- Master of Psychology (Applied)University of New South Wales
- Bachelor of Science (Psychology), HonoursUniversity of New South Wales
- Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Career Development)Australian Catholic University
- Currently studying: Graduate Diploma in Perinatal Mental Health (Federation University) and Master of Psychotherapy and Counselling (Western Sydney University)
Registration & training
- Registered Psychologist, AHPRA (PSY0001763390)
- Member, Australian Psychological Society (MAPS)
- Medicare Provider Number: 6337484L
About me
Hello, I'm Vanessa
I'm an AHPRA-registered psychologist with more than two decades of experience in applied psychology. Through Velvet Psychology, I support people navigating the emotional landscape of family planning, pregnancy, birth and early parenthood.
Alongside my independent practice, I'm an active clinician with Gidget Foundation Australia and Mums Matter Psychology, providing psychological assessment, case formulation and evidence-based therapy to expectant and new parents, including individual telehealth therapy across the full perinatal continuum, from family planning through to postpartum recovery and return to work.
Before this, I worked in community mental health at Jewish Care, providing frontline support, advocacy and referral for people facing complex life circumstances, including parenting stress, relationship breakdown and grief. Earlier in my career I worked for many years as a careers psychologist and counsellor, and as an organisational psychologist.
Why “Velvet”?
Velvet is soft to the touch. It evokes warmth, comfort and the feeling of being held — qualities that can feel especially important during pregnancy, early parenthood and other times of change. It reflects the calm, compassionate and non-judgemental space I aim to offer in therapy.
The name also speaks to a central part of my approach: helping clients become softer with themselves. Often described in psychology as self-compassion, this means learning to meet difficult thoughts, feelings and experiences with understanding rather than harsh self-criticism. This gentler inner relationship can support meaningful and lasting change.
My approach
Integrative, trauma-informed and person-centred
My practice is integrative and trauma-informed, exploring how childhood experience shapes the way we parent. Together, we work through early trauma and stress while building self-compassion, connection, authenticity and resilience. Much of this involves learning to be gentler with ourselves, particularly in our self-talk, because the relationship we have with ourselves is the one that lasts a lifetime.
Over the years, as both a psychologist and a mother, I've come to see that becoming a parent touches every part of life: who we are, how we relate to others, and how we treat ourselves. I wholeheartedly believe that when a baby is born, a mother is born too. Matrescence is the quiet, powerful process of becoming someone new, and for most of us it calls for softness and support, including from within. A central part of my work is helping clients become softer with themselves and gentler in their self-talk, because the relationship we have with ourselves is the one that lasts the longest. I bring this understanding, shaped by my own lived experience, into each session.
I draw on evidence-based approaches including:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills
- Mindfulness
- Psychodynamic therapy and attachment-informed practice
- Psychoeducation
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
Compassion is not zero sum, it is additive. The more we give ourselves, the more we have to give others.
Many of us don't need to learn to do hard things. We've survived hard things. What we really need to do is learn to do soft things… to soften our thoughts, our self-talk, and our overthinking.
Ready when you are.
Reach out for a gentle conversation about whether working together feels right for you.
Book a consultation →