About Emily
If your body has been sounding the alarm — you're not broken, and you're not imagining it.
Chronic pain, tension that won't shift, anxiety, burnout, or the after-effects of stress and trauma — I'm Emily, and this is the work I do.
Your nervous system is like a guard dog
When it's well-trained, your nervous system barks only when there's real danger — and lets you get on with life. But after injury, chronic pain, stress or trauma, that guard dog can get jumpy. It starts barking at things that aren't actual threats — a certain movement, a twinge, even just the memory of pain — because it's trying to protect you. The problem is, an overprotective guard dog doesn't make you safer. It just makes your world smaller.
A lot of approaches try to just quiet the barking — a breathing trick here, a quick hack there. That might mute the alarm for a moment, but the guard dog is still on edge. At ReCentre Physio, we work on the deeper picture: using nervous system regulation alongside guided movement and physiotherapy, we support your body's natural ability to adapt — so it can genuinely learn what feels safe again.
This is work that helps you feel safe enough to change — in your body, your mind, your relationships and how you show up for yourself.
Who this work is for
Chronic pain with no clear answer. A big life transition that's left you untethered. Feeling dismissed or unheard by other practitioners. Burnout, trauma, anxiety, or patterns you keep repeating without knowing why. You don't need a diagnosis to reach out — just a sense that your body or nervous system needs support.
My story
I was a busy physiotherapist running my own clinic — until I ran headlong into what so many practitioners quietly experience: carer burnout and empathy fatigue. As a physiotherapy student, I remember being shocked to learn that most physiotherapists leave the profession within five to seven years. After many years in practice, I finally understood why.
I got to know dysregulation intimately — swinging between the highs of anxiety as I tried to fix and help my clients, and the crashes that followed: collapsed and depleted, unable to muster the energy for even ordinary demands. Talking things through didn't stick; replaying them left me more anxious than before. I felt stuck in that cycle.
Finding a different way
I came to realise I needed a nervous-system, body-centred approach — and that regulation was something I could learn to create for myself. I tried yoga, mindfulness, exercise, surfing, dancing, gardening. Each one helped in the moment, but nothing carried me past the swings of busyness, anxiety and exhaustion, or that particular "tired but wired" feeling.
Alongside this, I became curious about why some people improved while others stayed stuck, no matter which therapeutic approach we tried. Through years of clinical practice, I noticed a recurring theme: my clients weren't only dealing with physical ailments like neck pain — their nervous systems were locked in a constant state of survival. Standard physiotherapy, I realised, was missing something vital.
What followed
I took further professional development — Jessica Maguire's Nervous System School and a Diploma of Counselling — studying the mind-body connection, neuroplasticity, interoception, the vagus nerve, and what it means to create lasting change. My work evolved, and so did the way I understood what my clients were experiencing.
Where this leaves me now
Every person's story is different, but experiences of stress, grief, loss and trauma are part of being human. I don't believe healing is simply about returning to how we were before — recovery can create space for growth, self-understanding and a clearer sense of what matters to us.
I founded ReCentre Physio to offer that possibility to others — a place where you're respected and supported to work at a pace that feels right for you, and where your unique history is at the centre of your care, not just your symptoms.
Core values
Safety first
Healing can't happen until the nervous system feels safe — everything else is built on this.
Whole-person care
The body and mind are not separate conversations. We treat them as one system.
You are the expert in you
Clinical knowledge meets lived experience — we build the plan together, not for you.
Evidence, not trend
Our practice is grounded in genuine neuroscience, and we stay current as the research evolves.
Your own pace, your own pattern
No two nervous systems are the same — we honour your individual fingerprint over a fixed protocol.
Practitioners need care too
The same principle of sustainable capacity we offer clients, we extend to the clinicians who support them.
Mission
To support people to regulate their nervous systems, ease stress-related physical and emotional symptoms, and reconnect with their bodies and inner experience — so they can move, live and work with greater steadiness, clarity and wellbeing. This practice exists to offer warm, integrative, trauma-aware physiotherapy and counselling-informed support that honours the whole person.
Training & registration
Grounded in physiotherapy, shaped by nervous system science and counselling — an integrative approach built on solid clinical foundations. Research in this space is always evolving; this work is embedded in evidence-based practice, not trend or guesswork.
Physiotherapy
- Bachelor of Physiotherapy, University of Queensland, 2007
- AHPRA Registered Practitioner
Nervous system regulation & counselling
- Nervous System School certification (Jessica Maguire) — title as supplied, to be confirmed
- Diploma of Counselling
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