Counselling Cost Gold Coast? Start With What Is Free

Counselling Journey

By Christina Feyes · ~8 min read · The honest answer to the money question

Is counselling actually worth the money?

Let me be honest with you, because pretending otherwise would insult your intelligence. Counselling is not free, and money worry is real and completely valid, especially right now on the Gold Coast. So the fair question is not “how cheap is it” but “what am I getting, and is it worth it for me.” Those are different questions. Something can be inexpensive and useless. Something can cost real money and change how you live for years. Price on its own tells you very little. What matters is whether the support fits the problem, and whether the person sitting with you actually helps you feel and function differently.

According to the National Mental Health Commission’s 2024 National Report Card, drawing on the ABS Patient Experience Survey, 20.4 per cent of Australians delayed or did not see a health professional for their mental health in 2023-24 because of cost. That figure has climbed from 12.0 per cent just a few years earlier, and women and people on lower incomes carry the heaviest load. So if you are hesitating over money, you are not weak or precious. You are one in five of us. That is exactly why I start everyone with something free.

What is actually free before you pay anything?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. Before you ever commit to paid sessions, you can use the parts that cost nothing to work out whether I am the right fit for you.

• The free 15-minute assessment, where we talk about what is going on and whether I am the right person for it. If I am not, I will tell you.
• Reading about how I actually work, on the individual counselling page, so you know what a session looks like before you decide.
• Learning a little about who I am and my background over on the about Christina page, so you are not handing your story to a stranger.
• Free national supports that exist for everyone. Lifeline (13 11 14), Beyond Blue (1300 22 4636) and 13YARN (13 92 76) are all free to call, day or night.

My view is simple. You should be able to test the fit before you test your wallet. That is what the 15-minute assessment is for. Nothing to lose.

Does Medicare cover a counsellor?

This one trips a lot of people up, so here is the honest version. Medicare rebates for talking therapy run through a GP Mental Health Treatment Plan, and they apply to registered psychologists and some accredited social workers. They generally do not cover counsellors. I am a counsellor, with a background and training in psychology, social work and human services, and I want to be upfront that I am not a registered psychologist and my sessions do not attract a Medicare rebate.

That matters for your decision. If a Medicare rebate is essential for you, the honest path is to see your GP, talk about a Mental Health Treatment Plan, and ask for a referral to a registered psychologist. There is no shame in that, and I would rather point you there than have you stretch for something that does not suit your situation. What I offer is a different thing, and for many people it is worth choosing on its own merits, which I will come to.

What about private health or an EAP through work?

There are other doors worth checking before you assume counselling is out of reach. Some private health funds include counselling under their extras cover, but it depends entirely on your specific fund and on the practitioner’s registration. I will not guess on your behalf. The five-minute job is to ring your fund and ask them directly what they cover and who they cover it with.

The other one people forget is their workplace. Many Gold Coast employers, including plenty in hospitality, tourism, retail and construction, quietly pay for an Employee Assistance Program. An EAP usually gives you a set number of confidential counselling sessions at no cost to you, and often to your immediate family too. If you have a job, it is worth asking your manager or HR whether one exists. A lot of people are entitled to free sessions and never knew.

Why does living here make the money worry sharper?

Because the Gold Coast is genuinely expensive to live in right now, and I am not going to pretend I do not see it. Rents here have become some of the highest in the country, higher in many cases than the big southern capitals, and a lot of that is driven by short-term holiday letting eating into the long-term supply. If you are renting in Southport, Surfers Paradise, Burleigh, Robina, Coomera or Nerang, you already know how much of your pay disappears before you have bought groceries.

On top of that, so much local work is casual, seasonal and tied to tourism and hospitality, where hours and income wobble from week to week. We also have a transient population, people arriving and leaving, which can make it hard to feel settled or supported. All of that is real pressure, and pressure is often exactly what pushes someone to look for counselling in the first place. So the money worry and the reason you are reaching out are frequently the same worry wearing two hats.

Why can longer sessions mean fewer of them?

Here is where value gets interesting. Most counselling and therapy sessions run around fifty to sixty minutes. Mine run ninety to one hundred and five minutes. That is a deliberate choice, not padding.

In a short session, a lot of the time goes into arriving, settling, remembering where you left off, and then packing up just as something real starts to surface. In a longer session there is room to actually get somewhere in one sitting. We can reach the thing underneath the thing, the root rather than the surface, and stay with it long enough for something to shift. In my experience, when the work goes deeper in each session, people often need fewer sessions overall than they feared. They are not on a treadmill of weekly appointments for years. That changes the value equation completely. A smaller number of longer, deeper sessions can be very different from a long string of short ones, both for how you feel and for what it asks of you over time.

What if I truly cannot afford it right now?

Then I want you to have honest options, not a sales pitch. If money is genuinely the barrier and things feel urgent, you should never be left with nothing. Free supports exist and they are there for exactly this.

• Lifeline on 13 11 14 for crisis support, any time, day or night.
• Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 for mental health support and guidance on where to go next.
• 13YARN on 13 92 76 for culturally safe support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
• Your GP, who can talk to you about a Mental Health Treatment Plan and a referral to a psychologist under Medicare.
• Community health services and local not-for-profits, which sometimes offer lower-cost or free counselling.

If you or someone with you is in immediate danger, call 000. None of that is second-best. Using a free service when a free service is what you need is a smart, self-respecting decision, and I would rather you did that than skip help altogether because you were waiting to afford me.

How do I start without spending anything?

You book the free 15-minute assessment. That is the whole first step. We talk, I listen, and by the end you will have a clearer sense of whether working with me makes sense for you and your situation. If it does, we go from there. If it does not, you have lost nothing and you will likely leave with a better idea of what would help, which is worth having on its own.

Before you pay anyone, anywhere, here are a few questions worth asking yourself and them:

• Does this person work with the specific thing I am carrying?
• Will I get enough time in each session to actually get somewhere?
• Have I checked my private health fund and my workplace EAP?
• If I need a Medicare rebate, have I asked my GP about a plan and a psychologist referral?
• Do I feel, even in a short first conversation, like I could be honest with this person?

If you want to understand the wider picture of support across the region, our Gold Coast counselling page lays it out. But the simplest move is the free one.