Welcome to Thrive Wellness - Toowoomba
Thrive Wellness is a health clinic offering Clinical Psychology, Exercise Physiology and nutrition services in the Toowoomba area.
Our goal is to support you to be healthy in your mind and body so you can be doing what matters to you.
Our philosophy
We believe that as much as possible, people should be able to manage their own health. At Thrive Wellness our aim is to promote self management of both your physical and mental health. Our clinicians will work with you to collaboratively identify treatment goals that are important to you, have measurable outcomes and enable you be active in doing those things that matter most to you.
We recognise that relief of symptoms is only part of a bigger picture when it comes to your health. We aim to provide treatments that have functional outcomes - such as getting you active again in your work and hobbies - not just reduction of pain or distress. We believe it is important to provide you with practical resources and strategies to be able maintain the long-term health of your mind and body.
In working towards symptom relief it is useful to be aware that many treatments can seem to initially increase symptoms. This is because we often automatically adopt strategies for managing symptoms that provide short-term relief but not long-term management. Treatment may require ceasing use of these strategies of short-term relief while implementing a more effective management. This is explained in relation to psychological wellbeing in our article, "It Gets Worse Before it Gets Better" - but the same patterns also often apply for our physical health.
Our Services
We are dedicated to providing affordable, specialised treatments to all ages - children, adolescents and adults.
Our Exercise Physiologist and Bowen Therapist offers assessments and treatment for a range of muscular, neurological and metabolic conditions and physical pain or injury. Treatment plans are customised to your individual needs, taking into account the interaction of factors such as physical symptoms, nutrition, sleep, beliefs and emotions.
Our Clinical Psychologist offers assessments and treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, depression and anxiety.
Our Clinicians
Dr Paul McQueen, Clinical Psychologist
Dr Paul McQueen is the Clinical Psychologist at Thrive Wellness. He has experience working in both adult and child mental health services in Queensland and Victoria and in providing supervision to psychologists in public mental health service and private practice settings.
Dr McQueen has particular interest in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Depression.
More about Paul McQueen
Michelle Nolan, Psychologist
Michelle is a registered Psychologist at Thrive Wellness and is passionate about improving the mental health of individuals in the Toowoomba community. She has over 8 years experience working as a Psychologist in public hospital and private practice settings, where she has worked with children, adolescents and adults. In her pursuit for excellence to provide better outcomes for her clients, she is currently undertaking a Masters in Clinical Psychology at Charles Sturt University, enhancing her clinical intervention skills.
Felicia McQueen, Exercise Physiologist; Nutritionist
Felicia McQueen is the Exercise Physiologist, Bowen therapist and Nutritionist at Thrive Wellness. She has experience in working with all bodies, from infants through to the elderly, in areas of injury prevention, rehabilitation and chronic disease management. She has experience supporting families with multiple allergies and intolerances and has keen interest in the role of nutritional medicine to the autonomic nervous system in optimising cellular health and reversal of disease processes.
More about Felicia McQueen
Thriving - Health News & Insights
Interpersonal Problem Grid
The Interpersonal Problem Grid is a tool to assist looking at an interpersonal problem or conflict from a variety of perspectives. This can help to develop a fuller picture of the nature of the problem and where change may be possible. A more detailed explanation and example of how the interpersonal problem grid can be used can be found in the article “It’s not me – it’s you” – a problem of perspective.
Anger & Assertiveness resource
This anger and aggression PDF provides a visual tool for explaining anger, passivity, aggression and assertiveness. For more information, see our blog post I have an anger problem …
Subjective Units of Distress scales
This scale can be used as a “thermometer” of a variety of emotions, for the purpose of grading and comparing the intensity of an emotion in different contexts. The name of the emotion is recorded at the top of the scale, and a description of what is experienced at different intensities is recorded against different values on the thermometer, with 0 representing the absence of the emotion, and 100 representing the most intense experience of that emotion you could ever imagine experiencing. There are two versions of this tool available: Subjective units of distress – anxiety version Subjective units of…
The ABC Monitoring worksheet
The ABC Monitoring worksheet is for identifying beliefs that play a role in producing our emotional and behavioural reactions to situations. Triggering situations are recorded in the “A” column, and reactions in the “C” column. Thoughts and beliefs that produced those reactions are then recorded in the “B” column. It is useful to use this tool in conjunction with a list of common cognitive distortions so that unhelpful beliefs can be categorised according to relevant cognitive distortions.
Describe Your Emotions worksheet
Sometimes our ability to process emotions while still engaging in logical processing of information may not be as developed as we would like. This can contribute to problems such as saying or doing things when we are angry, frightened or sad that we might later wish we had said or done differently. The Describe Your Emotions worksheet, adapted from a tool in the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by McKay, Brantley, Wood & Marra, is a tool you can use to train yourself over time to build stronger communication pathways between emotional processing centres and other information processing centres in…
Radio National program on Borderline Personality Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder is a treatable condition. Listen to Radio National’s recent segment on the condition to find out more.
Motivation experiment days 22 & 23
Do you feel wise?
Emotions exist for a reason. Feelings tell us important things that logic alone may miss. Sometimes those things are really, really important.