Dr Daniel Shaw
Clinical & Counselling Psychologist
Board Approved Supervisor

Life can look entirely manageable from the outside while feeling exhausting behind closed doors. You might find your days increasingly dictated by intrusive thoughts and repetitive mental or physical rituals, caught in a relentless cycle around food and body image, or pulled into habits with gaming or pornography that leave you feeling isolated and ashamed. For others, the weight of unresolved past experiences, workplace burnout, or recurring conflict with a partner begins to erode their sense of safety and connection. When the ways you usually push through no longer seem to work, therapy offers a dedicated space to pause, step out of survival mode, and understand what is driving your distress.

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Dr Daniel Shaw is the Founder and Director of Shaw Psychology, bringing over 15 years of clinical experience to his work in the Melbourne CBD. He holds a Doctor of Psychology alongside dual AHPRA Area of Practice Endorsements in both Clinical Psychology and Counselling Psychology, and is a Fellow of both the APS College of Clinical Psychologists and the APS College of Counselling Psychologists. Across his career, Dr Shaw has worked extensively in private practice, public youth mental health outreach, corporate Employee Assistance Programmes (EAP), critical incident trauma response, and high-acuity crisis intervention. His doctoral research into behavioural addictions received the APS College of Counselling Psychologists Doctoral Award, and he regularly prepares independent reports for state and federal courts. In the consulting room, clients experience him as calm, perceptive, and genuinely collaborative, combining rigorous clinical knowledge with an approachable, down-to-earth manner.

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Rather than applying a rigid, textbook formula, Dr Shaw begins by working alongside you to build a clear, shared map of your difficulties. Together, you will explore how your history, nervous system responses, core beliefs, and current life pressures interact to keep certain patterns going. From there, therapy balances two complementary priorities: equipping you with grounded, practical strategies to navigate day-to-day triggers, while undertaking deeper therapeutic work to shift long-standing emotional, relational, and behavioural cycles. Every stage of the process is transparent and paced collaboratively, ensuring you remain in the driver's seat of your own therapy.

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Dr Shaw provides individual therapy for adolescents (aged 13 and over) and adults of all ages and backgrounds, as well as couples therapy, offering an inclusive, neurodiversity-affirming, and LGBTIQA+ affirming space. As an endorsed Clinical Psychologist, he is registered to provide the higher Clinical Psychologist Medicare rebate for eligible clients referred under a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan or Eating Disorder Plan. He also welcomes clients accessing support through Private Health Insurance, the Victims of Crime Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), WorkSafe, TAC, and NDIS (Self-Managed and Plan-Managed).

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Areas of Focus

• Trauma, PTSD & Complex Stressor Presentations: Evidence-based trauma processing and stabilisation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), historical childhood sexual, physical, or emotional abuse, domestic and family violence, Adjustment Disorders, and Dissociative Disorders.

• Obsessive-Compulsive & Related Presentations: Structured psychological support for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) (including intrusive harm, relationship, contamination, and morality obsessions, as well as mental compulsions), Hoarding Disorder, and Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD).

• Eating Disorders & Body Image Concerns: Individual psychological care for adolescents (13+) and adults experiencing Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, compulsive exercise, and disordered eating patterns.

• Behavioural Addictions & Compulsive Habits: Focused, non-judgmental support for individuals struggling to regain agency over problematic gaming, internet and digital overuse, and compulsive pornography use.

• Anxiety, Mood & Burnout: Support for Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia, Health Anxiety, Major Depression, Persistent Depressive Disorder, perfectionism, and high-pressure workplace stress and burnout.

• Personality Complexity & Emotional Regulation: Long-term relational therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD), avoidant or dependent relational patterns, intense shame, and emotional dysregulation.

• Relationships & Couples Therapy: Working with both individuals and couples to navigate communication breakdown, recurring conflict, infidelity and trust repair, intimacy and attachment difficulties, and separation or divorce.

• Identity, Existential Concerns & Neurodivergent-Affirming Support: Assisting clients exploring meaning, purpose, and existential isolation, assertiveness and boundary setting, LGBTIQA+ identity and minority stress, and neurodiversity-affirming therapy or skill building for autistic and ADHD clients.

• Forensic & Court Assessments: Preparation of comprehensive, independent psychological reports for Family Court, Magistrates' Court, Victims of Crime (FAS) applications, and work capacity evaluations.

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Therapeutic Approaches

Dr Shaw draws from a range of well-researched psychological modalities, selecting and adapting methods that fit your specific goals and preferences:

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): Helps you step back from unhelpful, repetitive thoughts and build psychological flexibility so you can invest your energy into the values and actions that matter most to you.

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): A structured, practical approach that examines how your thoughts, beliefs, physical sensations, and behaviours interact, giving you concrete tools to test new perspectives and habits in daily life.

• Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP): The gold-standard, collaborative behavioural approach for OCD and phobias, supporting you to gradually face feared thoughts or situations while safely reducing reliance on exhausting compulsive rituals.

• Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) & Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT): Structured, evidence-based trauma therapies designed to help your brain and nervous system safely process distressing memories so past events no longer feel as though they are happening in the present.

• Enhanced Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT-E): A specialised, individualised framework designed specifically to address the core beliefs and behaviours maintaining eating disorders and body image distress.

• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) Skills & Mindfulness (MBCT): Practical skill-building focused on distress tolerance, grounding, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness during high-stress moments.

• Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT) & Person-Centred Therapy: A warm, relational foundation that explores how your attachment history, role transitions, and interpersonal dynamics shape your current wellbeing.

• The Gottman Method (Couples Therapy): A research-informed approach to couples counselling (Gottman Level 2 trained) that helps partners de-escalate conflict, rebuild trust, and strengthen emotional intimacy.

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More About Daniel

Outside of his clinical work, Daniel has a natural affinity for pursuits that blend curiosity, patience, and hands-on craftsmanship. He is a lifelong fan of rich, immersive storytelling, whether through classic fantasy literature, narrative-driven video games, or heavyweight tabletop strategy campaigns. At home, he enjoys the quiet focus of painting miniatures, tinkering with home tech, and practicing new skills or exercises, almost always with an eclectic playlist of indie synth-pop, downtempo electronica, or orchestral soundtracks running in the background.

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In the kitchen, Daniel channels that same methodical streak into experimenting with sous vide cooking, making small-batch preserves from scratch, and dialling in his morning espresso. Grounded by family life and his active role serving on his local primary school council, he also loves exploring Melbourne's Japanese ramen bars and French bistros, and recharging with his family at quiet regional country get aways.