PhD · Clinical Psychology
Griffith University
Evidence-based Therapies
CBT, ACT, EFT, Schema Therapy
— ABOUT DR NARELLE
Your steady voice —
who happens to have a doctorate
I'm Dr Narelle Duncan — an AHPRA-registered Clinical Psychologist and the voice behind Steady and Connected. My PhD from Griffith University focused on interpersonal stress and couples coping, and my 30-year career spans naturopathic practice, counselling, and clinical psychology.
I work with individuals and couples on anxiety, attachment, and the ways our nervous systems make intimacy complicated. I'm also a real person — an Australian woman in my fifties who understands what it's like to navigate relationships, stress, and change with a neat clinical framework to explain it all.
Everything I create here draws on current research and clinical practice — written for you, not a medical journal. My clinical practice is available at getlifedirection.com.
AHPRA Registered
Clinical Psychologist
Medicare-Registered
Telehealth
30+ Years Experience
Health, Wellbeing, Psychology
Research Background
Interpersonal Stress - Couples
- THE STORY
A 30-year career with
one central theme.
Dr Narelle Duncan is an Australian Clinical Psychologist with a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology from Griffith University. Her 30-year career has spanned naturopathic practice, counselling, and clinical psychology — and through all three, the same central theme: helping people understand themselves.
Her path to clinical psychology is unusual, and the work she does today draws directly on it. Beginning her career as a naturopath under the Healing via Nature practice, she moved through provisional registration in psychology to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology at Griffith University — bringing a whole-person, evidence-informed perspective to the consulting room.
Her doctoral research focused on decentering — the capacity to take an observer perspective on one's own thoughts and emotions — and how it supports coping with interpersonal and romantic relationship stress. Across three empirical studies in individuals and couples, she examined how decentering relates to coping self-efficacy, coping flexibility, and relationship wellbeing. The measurement work was published in Personality and Individual Differences (Duncan, Zimmer-Gembeck, Gardner, & Modecki, 2021); the couples extensions form Studies 2 and 3 of the thesis (Griffith University, 2024). That research foundation underpins how she writes and works today.
Her clinical toolkit includes Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Schema Therapy, and mindfulness-based approaches. She works with individuals and couples across the full spectrum of relationship anxiety — from anxious and avoidant attachment patterns to nervous system dysregulation, communication breakdown, and the specific strains that financial stress and life transitions place on intimate relationships.
Through Steady and Connected, Dr Duncan brings this clinical depth to a broader Australian audience — offering psychoeducation via the weekly podcast, self-paced workbooks, and a flagship course for those who want to understand their patterns before, between, or beyond formal therapy.
She believes the gap between clinical expertise and everyday Australians is not inevitable. It is a design problem. And she has spent her career trying to close it.
- FOCUS AREAS
What I work with —
and write about.
My clinical and research focus sits at the intersection of anxiety, attachment, and the nervous system — particularly the ways anxiety shows up in committed adult relationships. Communication under stress. Repair after rupture. The specific physiology of feeling unsafe with the people who matter most.
Anxiety in close relationships
Anxious and avoidant
attachment patterns
Nervous system regulation
Communicating under stress
Couples coping with stress
and life transitions
Repair and rupture
— PSYCHOEDUCATION VS CLINICAL PRACTICE
Two separate practices.
Clear lines.
Steady and Connected is psychoeducation. The podcast, workbooks, course, and quiz are general resources, designed to help you understand patterns — what they look like, why they form, and what is known about working with them. They are not a substitute for individual psychological assessment or treatment, and using them does not create a therapeutic relationship.
Dr Duncan's clinical telehealth practice is at Get Life Direction — a separate practice with its own intake, terms, and clinical relationship. The Psychology Board's dual-relationship rules mean Steady and Connected audience members cannot also be Dr Duncan's clinical clients without specific arrangements.
If you are looking for psychoeducation, you are in the right place. If you are looking for individual clinical care, visit getlifedirection.com or speak with your GP about a Mental Health Care Plan.
Take care of yourself,
Dr Narelle Duncan
Clinical Psychologist · Steady and Connected