The Lane Cove rooms are at 2 Austin Street, directly opposite the Lane Cove Library and a few metres from Longueville Road. If you are coming from the village it is a walk of two or three minutes, and the parking behind the library is the easiest option in the middle of the day.
Lane Cove sends a particular mix of problems through the door. There are the desk-and-commute necks and low backs from St Leonards and the city, the shoulders and elbows of a suburb that plays a lot of tennis, and the knees and Achilles tendons that come with living on a hillside — the stairs down to Tambourine Bay and the streets off Burns Bay Road are their own kind of training load. Lane Cove also has a lot of people in their thirties and forties carrying small children, which is its own demand on a back.
A first appointment is mostly questions and movement testing: where the pain is, what makes it worse, what it stops you doing, and how it has behaved over weeks rather than days. From there you should leave knowing what is proposed, roughly how long it is expected to take, and what would mean changing the plan.
Worth bringing: any imaging or specialist letters you already have, a list of medications, and the shoes you actually walk or train in. If the pain is new and severe, follows a significant fall, or comes with numbness, weakness, fever or any change in bladder or bowel control, see a doctor first — that is a medical assessment, not a treatment question.
The nearest alternative if Lane Cove does not suit you is the Freshwater side, about 14 kilometres away across the Spit.
A diagnosis can point care in a useful direction, but it never describes everything about a person. Good mental health support connects with what you want to recover or keep.
A diagnosis can be a helpful signpost. It gives health professionals a shared language and can guide decisions about treatment. Yet it never captures the whole of a person: the job you are trying to hold onto, the morning walk you miss, the grandchildren you want to keep up with, the hobbies that pain or low mood have pushed aside.
Dr Christine Shen, Acupuncturist, brings psychotherapy qualifications to her psychological work with clients at the Lane Cove clinic. In sessions, you are encouraged to describe which areas of life are being affected and which matter most. That might be:
Naming these priorities helps shape support around a life rather than a label.
Ask Christine how often the work will be checked over, and when it may make sense to coordinate with your GP, psychiatrist, physiotherapist or other providers might help. If you have a mental health care plan, bring it along. Some needs call for medical assessment or a different service, and knowing this early is part of good care.
You remain more than a list of symptoms. A useful plan reflects both the difficulties you are facing and the things that give your days meaning. Discuss the things you hope to make sense of, what feels hard to change, and how you will notice that things are shifting. Check who to contact if your needs change between appointments.
If you ever feel unsafe, contact emergency services, a crisis support service or your GP without delay.
Care that sees the whole person is not a luxury. It simply means the conversation starts with your life as you live it, and the diagnosis takes its place as one helpful part of that story rather than the title.
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