About Pedro Campiao
Psychotherapist, educator, supervisor, and retreat facilitator supporting healing and growth: Mullumbimby, Byron Bay and online.
I'm an industry-accredited psychotherapist, supervisor, educator and retreat facilitator based in Mullumbimby, in the Byron Bay hinterland. I offer psychotherapy in person and online. For almost thirty years, I have accompanied people through periods of change, crisis, loss, growth, and awakening. My work is grounded in the belief that healing is not simply the absence of symptoms, but a movement towards greater wholeness, connection, and aliveness.
Professional Background
I set up my first therapy practice (Shiatsu) in 1999, and started training in psychotherapy in 2003, beginning work as a counsellor in 2005. Since that time I have worked as a counsellor for 10 yrs in Gov and non-gov organisations in the areas of family health, chronic illness, sexual health, men's wellbeing, alcohol and other drug services, and homelessness. I entered private practice as a psychotherapist in the Byron Bay in 2008. Alongside my clinical work, I facilitate retreats and professional trainings.
Qualifications
BA Religious Studies
Grad Dip Adult Education
Grad Dip Counselling
Masters Gestalt Therapy
Cert Somatic Psychotherapy (420 hrs face to face)
Diploma Zen Shiatsu
Cert IV Training & Assessment
A Journey of Belonging
I
I grew up in Portugal and came to Australia at the age of nine. This transition and disruption gave rise to a question that has stayed alive for me personally and has strongly shaped my therapeutic work: What is home? What does it mean to belong—in our bodies, our relationships, our culture, the land, and in the realm of the sacred? How do we cultivate this sense of belonging? And as a therapist, what is the most meaningful way I can support others in finding it?
My mother's family was from Angola, and from an early age, through hearing family stories, I became fascinated by Indigenous cultures, by cultural diversity, and by the ways communities organised themselves around beliefs and practices that held the sacred at their centre. Reinforced by extensive travels through North Africa, India, Asia and the Middle East, this curiosity eventually led me to undertake a Bachelor of Arts Religious Studies and Philosophy. Looking back, I can see that I wasn't simply interested in different cultures—I was searching for different ways that human beings create belonging with one another, with the Earth, and with what they experience as sacred.
Being part of a colonial family that had benefited from the exploitation of African peoples also awakened a deep commitment to social justice and an enduring interest in what a more life-giving culture might look like. Charles Eisenstein speaks of "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible." This question and vision informs both my politics and therapeutic work: how can my work be in support of such a vision.
Culture, Justice, and Equality
Over the years, I have been drawn to the places where psychology meets philosophy, spirituality, ecology, and community. Alongside formal psychotherapeutic training, I have explored contemplative traditions, systems thinking, myth and ritual, transpersonal perspectives, Indigenous wisdom traditions, and nature-based understanding
Healing as Remembering
Underlying my work is the belief that healing is as much about remembering as it is about change. It involves gently moving through the layers of adaptation, protection, and survival that have shaped us, and reconnecting with something more essential beneath them. This involves coming back into relationship with our bodies and emotions, reclaiming disowned aspects of ourselves, grieving what has been lost, and rediscovering qualities that may have been obscured by trauma or life's demands—our vitality, creativity, tenderness, sense of belonging, and capacity to love.
The process of remembering often involves reconnecting with deeper, soulful, more essential, archetypal, spiritual (whatever the term) dimensions of Being. The invitation then is to embody these deeper qualities more fully in our day to day: relationships, work, and way of being in the world. Healing, then, is both a coming home and an unfolding into who we are still becoming.
I recognise that wellbeing cannot be separated entirely from the quality of our relationships: with ourselves, with those we love, with our communities, with the earth, and, for many people, with a sense of spirit or something greater than the individual self. I hold hope in people's capacity for resilience, healing, and transformation, and believe psychotherapy can offer not only relief from suffering, but also an opportunity to cultivate lives characterised by greater meaning, vitality, and purpose.
Walking Alongside
I aim to offer a therapeutic relationship that is warm, grounded, collaborative, and responsive to the uniqueness of each person. While professional knowledge and experience is important, t, healing also emerges through presence, compassion, honesty, and the creation of a space where all aspects of ourselves are welcome.
Whether you are navigating a challenging period, processing trauma, moving through a significant life transition, exploring questions of identity and meaning, or longing to live with greater authenticity, aliveness and connection, I welcome the opportunity to walk alongside you.
At its heart, psychotherapy is an invitation to come home — to ourselves, to one another, and to the larger web of life of which we are a part.
Grow Your Vision
If something in what you've read resonates with you, I invite you to reach out.
You are welcome to book a complimentary 20-minute discovery call to explore whether working together feels like the right fit, or, if you already know you'd like to begin, you can book an initial psychotherapy session.
"There is a song that wants to sing itself through us.
We just have to be available to it"
Joanna Macy