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
What is the difference between a Psychologist and a Psychiatrist?
A brief answer to what is probably the question I am most commonly asked in relation to being a psychologist: “What is the differences between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?”
What is a psychologist?
Can a psychologist read your mind? What is the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist? Isn’t psychology all just common sense?
Wholemeal bread
Food plays an important part in our physical and mental wellbeing. Here is a wholemeal bread recipe offering both the therapeutic benefits of cooking and the benefits of wholesome food.
The Unrelenting Society
People with unrelenting standards simultaneously see themselves as unworthy and struggle to accept others. Their capacity for relaxation, pleasure, satisfying relationships or a sense of achievement is obstructed by these excessive standards. I wonder about the pervasive influence on us all of hypercritical attitudes in media combined with the incessant promotion of perfection in advertising. It seems that these massages are now being taken up and further promoted in social media.
The pain inside
“She’s just doing it for attention.” This is a phrase I have often heard from people trying to understand why a patient, a friend or a loved-one has been deliberately hurting themselves. Self injury goes against all our natural instincts of survival and self-protection. Unfortunately, the assumption often ends up being that a person who does such a thing must be either attention-seeking or “crazy”. But, most often, neither is the case.
It gets worse before it gets better
There is a common paradox for psychological therapy: many times the strategies we have found to provide us relief from our problems are at the same time perpetuating our problems. Consequently, therapy can at times be very uncomfortable: you make a choice to confront difficult feelings and experiences that you have developed a range of strategies for avoiding.
Buying your way to happiness, or despair?
Many of us enjoy the buzz a shopping spree creates now and then. But for some people buying becomes very much like an addiction. It is a problem that can have very significant consequences – the most obvious being debt and other financial problems. It can also create friction or breakdown in relationships or be a source of severe guilt and shame.
“Are you sure?”
Did you ever, as a child, hesitate to step on a crack or a line? You knew it wouldn’t hurt anyone but there was that tiny doubt that said, “But what if it was true? It would be terrible if your mother’s back got broken! And it would be your fault!“