About

Ponder Well Psychology is a telehealth psychology practice offering individual therapy for adults facing mental health challenges. At Ponder Well, therapy is a space to pause, reflect, and step back into the driver’s seat of your own life. Through:

  • Guided introspection, we’ll explore the experiences, thoughts and emotions weighing you down and clarify what truly matters to you.

  • Insight gaining, we’ll identify core beliefs, internalised rules and unhelpful patterns of behaviour keeping you stuck.

  • Behavioural change, we’ll put that insight into skill building and action in practical, achievable ways.

Bio

Registered psychologist | AAPI Member

Master of Professional Psychology, Macquarie University

Ayanthi De Silva

Curiosity has always been my guiding principle - an instinct that shaped me from childhood (initially towards creepy crawlies and medical anomalies) that evolved into a fascination of the intricacies of the human condition. This innate curiosity continues to inform my work as a psychologist. Curiosity is the antidote to judgement and the foundation of empathy. When we understand the forces that shape us - our ancestral drives, genetic predispositions, unmet needs, traumas, conditioning, biases, attachment styles and environment - our psyche and behaviours all makes sense.

Prior to becoming a registered psychologist, I spent six years working in community mental health, supporting individuals with severe mental health issues transition out of psychiatric facilities and into independent living. I witnessed how financial strain, insecure housing, unresolved traumas and alienation contributes to, and perpetuates mental health challenges. As social beings, we are not meant to navigate hardship alone - our wellbeing is deeply intertwined with the connections we build and the communities we are part of. Healing and growth don’t happen in isolation; they are nurtured through meaningful relationships, understanding, and support. While we may not always have control over the systems we live within, we do have the power to reclaim our agency and take steps toward the life we want. 

My work with people experiencing psychosis and voice-hearing, helped me recognise that voices only have as much influence as the hearer allows. This idea applies to everyone—our internal narratives, intrusive thoughts, and self-beliefs are just strings of words. Mental freedom lies in what you choose to indulge.

Outside of the therapy room, I love scouring antique shops for rare finds, gathering friends for cosy dinner parties, exploring rainforest trails and advocating for animal liberation.

What I Can Help You With

  • Depression

  • Relationship Concerns

  • Self-Esteem

  • Burnout

  • Anxiety

  • OCD

  • Perfectionism

  • Life Transitions

  • Emotion Regulation

  • Family Dynamics

  • ADHD Management

Treatment Modalities

  • ACT is a mindfulness-based behavioural therapy that helps individuals develop psychological flexibility - the ability to be present, accept difficult emotions, and take meaningful action aligned with their values. Instead of struggling to eliminate distressing thoughts and feelings, ACT encourages acceptance and teaches skills to engage with life more fully. It integrates six core processes, including cognitive defusion, acceptance, mindfulness, values clarification, and committed action, to help individuals break free from unhelpful patterns and live a more meaningful, values-driven life.

  • Schema Therapy explores deep-rooted patterns (schemas), developed in childhood and reinforced over time. These schemas shape how we relate to ourselves, others, and perceive the world, often leading to unhelpful behaviours and emotional distress. Through a combination of cognitive, behavioural, and experiential techniques, Schema Therapy helps individuals recognize these patterns, heal unmet emotional needs, and develop healthier ways of thinking, feeling, and relating to others.

  • Exposure Therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy that helps individuals gradually confront and reduce their fear or anxiety toward specific situations, objects, or thoughts. Through controlled and repeated exposure to the feared stimulus in a safe environment, clients learn to reduce their emotional response over time. This process helps them build resilience and develop healthier coping mechanisms, often used to treat conditions like phobias and OCD.

  • SFT is a brief, goal-oriented therapy that focuses on finding solutions to current problems rather than analysing past issues. It emphasises individual strengths, resources, and successes, helping to envision and work toward a preferred future. SFT encourages setting practical, achievable goals and develop strategies to create positive change. It is often used to address issues like anxiety, relationship problems, and stress, and is particularly effective for individuals seeking quick, actionable outcomes.

Behind the Name

The name Ponder Well Psychology was created to elicit a specific visual tapestry, connecting introspection with nature. So much of our time is spent in our heads, constantly churning over events of the past and concerning ourselves with what is yet to happen in the future. I have found solace in intentionally carving out space for this practice by switching my environment from inside four walls, to beside bodies of water, especially ponds. What would otherwise be chaotic rumination, becomes purposeful self-reflection and intention setting, facilitated by being grounded in an open environment, broadening my perspective and re-centring myself.

A pond symbolises many elements. It contains life, decay and death. It is a space for metamorphosis - spawn into tadpole into frog, and larvae into dragonfly. It is murky in parts, and clear in others. It is an ecosystem. Lotuses sprout from mud and emerge above water in full bloom. I see therapy as a parallel process - we want to wade through the muck that keeps us stagnant, reach points of clarity and clear space for growth.

The ‘Well’ contains a triple meaning:

💧wellbeing

💧skilfulness, i.e. to ponder well

💧a body of water to pull resources from