Bita Riazati Psychologist, Psychoanalyst in Melbourne

About Me

I’m a registered psychologist and psychotherpist based in Melbourne, offering psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for both adults and children. I work with people experiencing a wide range of emotional and mental health difficulties including anxiety, depression, trauma, addiction, personality challenges, psychosis, identity and relationship struggles. I also support individuals facing issues related to loneliness, migration, cultural dis-location, and early childhood that continue to have a firm grip on their lives.

As an experienced therapist with advanced training, I am equipped to work with anyone seeking to address their difficulties. While I can support you in many areas, some of the common concerns clients contact me about include existential concerns, depression, lethargy they can't shake off, anxiety and fears, self-defeating thoughts and behaviours, OCDs, regulation and attention issues, problems with life changes such as birth of a new child and parenting, and body image issues.

How We Work in Therapy

In my approach, therapy isn’t about giving advice or quick solutions from a manual. It’s a space where you are invited to express yourself openly sometimes about things that are hard to put into words. Together, we explore not only the symptoms or recurring issues that bring you in, but also the meanings behind them and giving the possibility to hearing them differently.

In therapy, I to listen not just to the words but also to the unconscious meanings of those words, what is unspoken, or not immediately apparent and may be interpreted through dreams, pauses and other formations coming from the unconscious. I may wonder with you, what would make one react in a particular way. This work is about the narratives you’ve formed around your life, the meaning you attach to your struggles, and how that meaning might shift and evolve as we work together.

Often, change emerges not just from resolving issues, but actually from transforming how you relate to them and how you understand their place in your life.

Careful Listening and Moving Beyond Symptoms

My approach offers a way of listening that goes beyond symptom relief, creating the space for your unconscious to emerge in sessions through your speech, often in places where people feel most stuck or misunderstood outside sessions in their lives.

Our purpose is to open up a space for the unconscious to speak, revealing how it influences your thoughts, feelings, and actions. You don’t need to be familiar with psychoanalysis or therapy to benefit from this way of working and treatment. What matters is your willingness to speak, and my commitment to listening in a way that respects your uniqueness and the meanings you make of it.

Cultural Knowledge

Having lived and worked across different cultural contexts, I’m also mindful of how language, family history, and social structures shape each person’s life and sense of self. I offer therapy in both English and Persian (Farsi) and work with people from a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. What draws me to this work is the uniqueness of every individual. I'm committed to working closely with anyone who seeks to understand themselves more deeply, whether through psychotherapy, psychoanalytic therapy, or long-term analysis. I believe change is possible not through a fixed formula, but by creating space to speak, listen, and uncover what might be trying to find its way into words and meaning.