emily mcgurk
Senior Clinical Psychologist
BPsych, MPsych(Clinical)
Emily provides a safe space for clients to explore challenges, shift unhelpful patterns, and feel more like themselves.
Emily sees adults.
Emily has a special interest in women's health, supporting women across adulthood as they navigate life's challenges and the emotional impact of physical health concerns. She has a particular interest in supporting women through key reproductive life stages, including pregnancy and the perinatal period, as well as menopause.
Emily’s clinic day is Tuesday. Book online with Emily using the button below, or Contact Us if you are new to The Skill Collective or have not seen Emily before.
emily’s areas of interest
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Emily supports women through the emotional and psychological changes of perimenopause, providing evidence-based care that recognises the complex interplay between hormonal changes, mental health, physical wellbeing, and evolving identity.
She understands that perimenopause often coincides with one of the busiest periods of a woman's life, when the demands of work, family, relationships, and caring responsibilities can compound its challenges. Emily helps women navigate this mental load while making sense of the changes they are experiencing.
She also works with women adjusting to the identity shifts that can accompany this stage, including changing perceptions of ageing, grief related to fertility or life transitions, and redefining what this next chapter of life can look like.
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Emily has extensive experience supporting families through difficult times including:
Adjusting to parenthood
The impact on parenting on relationships
Managing difficult child behaviours
Enhancing relationships with children and teens
Having difficult conversations
She uses an attachment framework to help parents nurture their relationships with their children whilst balancing their own self-care.
She helps parents to navigate their child’s developmental stages, and assists with building practical strategies for emotion regulation, communication and repair.
Emily prioritises supporting parents to find a way through that fits families and their individual needs.
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Emily supports those on their journey to parenthood - from family planning to early parenting, with care for challenges that can arise along the way including fertility issues, pregnancy loss, unexpected birth experiences, and parental burnout.
Emily takes a non-judgemental and supporting approach in helping individuals and families to navigate the changes that may arise during this period:
Changes to routine and relationships
Impact on body image and self-esteem
Changes to mood
Changes to identity
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Emily supports women as they navigate the competing demands of building a career while managing their health and wellbeing. Whether living with persistent pain, chronic health conditions, or other physical changes, she helps women develop practical strategies to manage the emotional impact on confidence, identity, relationships, and work.
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With a keen interest in supporting those with burnout and perfectionism, Emily helps individuals to:
Explore how their expectations impact on wellbeing and performance
Set boundaries with themselves and others
Help them to make practical and sustainable changes so they can live in a way that is more aligned with their goals and values.
Her goal is to help individuals thrive in life and to become more resilient.
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Emily helps individuals who find themselves stuck in unhelpful cycles of anxiety and depression to shift thinking patterns and behaviours in order to live a more fulfilling life.
She has a particular interest in supporting those experiencing panic and chronic worrying.
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Emily helps with health issues and adjustment(e.g. adjustment to diagnosis, health anxiety).
Emily has extensive experience working within a hospital system and recognises the impact of health issues on mental health, and the toll it can take on carers and family members.
Emily brings a compassionate approach to helping individuals adjust to health diagnoses and the resulting impact on psychological wellbeing.
articles written by emily
about emily
Emily completed her Bachelor of Psychology (with a minor in Business) at Curtin University, and her Master of Applied Clinical Psychology at Murdoch University. She worked for many years in hospital settings and also with youth, supporting individuals with adjustment and improving wellbeing, mental health, and quality of life.
Emily’s therapeutic approach is one grounded in evidence-based research and informed by clinical experience. She draws on techniques from Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Schema Focused Therapy, Mindfulness, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy and has completed further training in Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing.
Emily runs her own independent practice and engages The Skill Collective to provide administrative and other business services to support her provision of assessment and treatment to clients.
Parental burnout is real. It can leave you feeling exhausted, emotionally distant from your children, less effective as a parent, and overwhelmed by the demands of parenting. Learn how to recover, reconnect, and strengthen your relationship with your children.