Professional Experience | Drleoniewhite

Dr Leonie White

Psychologist and Clinical Family Therapist

Bachelor of Behavioural Science, Bachelor of Psychology (Hons), Doctor of Philosophy in Organisational Psychology.
Registered Psychologist - Psychology Board of Australia AHPRA
Member - Australian Psychological Society
Clinical Member and Accredited Supervisor - Australian Association of Family Therapy

Dr Leonie White is a Psychologist and Clinical Family Therapist with nearly three decades of experience in the counseling and mental health field, and a passion for supporting individuals, families, communities, professionals, and organizations through an integrative systemic family therapy lens.

Dr Leonie White is also a founder of the Queensland Institute of Family Therapy.

Prior to founding the Queensland Institute of Family Therapy, Leonie's experience includes work with children, teenagers, adults, couples, families, foster families, residential care providers, teachers and other helping professionals, in Queensland Health (Child and Youth Mental Health Service & Evolve Therapeutic Service), as well as Australian and Canadian Education and Child Protection Systems. Leonie has a special interest in supporting the Wellbeing, Mental Health and Family Relationships of children, teenagers, adults, couples and families.

Leonie established a Systemic Family Therapy and Psychology private practice in 2013 providing counselling and family therapy. In addition to clinical services Leonie supports the wellbeing, growth and practice of other helping professionals through mentorship, individual and group supervision, consultancy, and professional development training, and she is also a recognized supervisor of Psychologists with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency and of Family Therapists with the Australian Association of Family Therapy.

Leonie is committed to making Family Therapy accessible and useful and provides a range of free quality resources to the community through her website blogs, eBooks, worksheets and infographics, as well as through her YouTube channel, and online courses.

In April 2021 Leonie launched her passion project - the Helping Families Thrive Cards. A deck of 36 cards covering key ingredients of growing healthy, thriving families. These cards were inspired by the struggles families faced in 2020 and designed to make Leonie's clinical practice, and family therapy research and practice available and accessible to families.

Leonie's commitment to supporting wellbeing on a larger scale has also led her to contribute to the community by providing training events for the general public and in the Education sector.

Leonie enjoys ongoing teaching and supervision in the Masters of Counselling program at the Queensland University of Technology, supervising final year students in a Reflecting Team live supervision clinic, as well as providing guest lectures in Master of Clinical Psychology at the University of Southern Queensland and guest lectures in the Advanced Certificate of Psychotherapy for the RANCP Queensland Branch. Leonie has valued her past contribution to the Master of Mental Health (Family Therapy) program at the University of Queensland teaching and supervising across the program as well as being the Family Therapy field of study coordinator.

Leonie is passionate about connecting with other helping professionals and sharing systemic family therapy theory and practice, and has presented at multiple national conferences in relation to Systemic Family Therapy ideas in Mental Health, Child Protection, Collaborative Practice, Clinical Supervision and Integration of Therapeutic approaches. These include multiple Australian Association of Family Therapy National Conferences, an Australian College for Child and Family Protection Practitioners Conference, a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference (Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association), and she was an invited keynote speaker at the 2023 Association of Counsellors in Catholic Secondary Schools Queensland Conference.

Leonie's contributions to the profession also include publications in academic journals, and the role of Guest Editor for a special edition of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy on the topic of Integrative Practice in Family Therapy.

As an integrative systemic family therapist Leonie's practice is grounded in systemic therapy with a focus on collaboration, strengths based practice, attachment understandings, creative therapy approaches, cutting-edge neuroscience, understandings of trauma informed care, and somatic approaches.

Leonie is the Co-Director of the Queensland Institute of Family Therapy (QIFT), together with Dr Kate Owen www.qldfamilytherapy.com

Please note Leonie does not provide a crisis service. If you require crisis support please contact Lifeline (13 11 14), or seek emergency services support by calling 000 or presenting to your local hospital Accident and Emergency Department.

Currently, Leonie is available for Counselling and Family Therapy, Training, Consultancy, and Supervision (Individual and Group Clinical Supervision).

Publications:

White, L. (2022). Integrative practice in family therapy. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 43, 3 – 8.
White, L. & Owen, K. (2022). Systemic integrative practice: A meta-framework. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 43, 33 – 53.
White, L. (2020). What can contemporary family therapy offer in a pandemic? Psychotherapy and Counselling Today, November 2020, 26 – 33.
Shum, D., Short, L., Tunstall, J., O’Gorman, J., Wallace, G., Shephard, K. & Murray, R. (2000). Performance of children with traumatic brain injury on a 4-disc version of the tower of London and the Porteus Maze. Brain and Cognition, 44, 54 – 62. (NB Leonie White nee Leonie Short)

Conferences:

2023 ACCSSQ Conference: The Gold Standard: School Based Interventions for Children and Adolescents - Creating Positive Parent Partnerships.
2021 Child and Adolescent Mental Health Conference (Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association) - Working Safely with Families and Trauma: Integrating Neurobiology, Stabilization and Family Therapy.
2019 Australian Association of Family Therapy Conference – What Matters in Contemporary Family Therapy: Things our Students have Taught Us.
2017 Australian Association of Family Therapy Conference – Systemic Interventions for Children in Care: What Works in the Context of Trauma and what do our Clients Notice Works?
2014 Australian Association of Family Therapy Conference – It Takes a System to Raise a Family Therapist (especially one working with relational trauma): How Systemic Group Supervision Can Grow Competent and Confident Family Therapists.
2009 Australian Association of Family Therapy Conference – Lessons Learned from Working Systemically with Children and Young People in Foster Care: Resilience and resourcefulness through Relationships
2008 Australian Family Therapy Conference – Evolutions in Family Therapy: Working Systemically with Children in Care
2008 Australian College for Child and Family Protection Practitioners – Evolutions in Partnerships: Meaningfully Engaging Young People in Collaboration
2004 British Psychological Society Annual Conference – Social Rules for Conflict Escalation in response to pushy behaviour in the Workplace