COUNSELLING AND SUPPORT SERVICES FOR DANCERS
Hi, I'm Caitlin!
My name is Caitlin Thamm, I am 27 years old and I have lived in Brisbane, Australia for most of my life.
For about 15 years, my life consisted of anything and everything to do with dance. I began full time dancing at the age of 13, which led me to finish my final years of high school at Queensland Dance School of Excellence. Following graduation I completed a year of Queensland Ballet's Pre-Professional Program in 2013 participating in various company productions.
Over the next 2 years I continued to train and traveled all over Europe auditioning for ballet companies in search for employment. Facing many struggles and disappointments I decided to return home to Australia and re-evaluate my future.
Then a combination of multiple elements contributed towards me making one of the most difficult decisions so far.
I stopped dancing.
I grew a heart for the wider community and applied to university, where in 2018 I graduated with a Bachelor of Human Services.
During this time I began to notice the scarce amount of industry specific mental health support for dancers in Australia.
I decided that my own experience within the dance world was a perfect asset in order to understand and support dancers going through the adversities the industry produces.
In order to accomplish this I then set out to receive the best and most appropriate training to equip me for this endeavour.
In December 2020 I graduated with a Master of Counselling from the University of Queensland and am now a registered counsellor with The Australian Counselling Association (Level 2).
Through a multi-faceted theoretical approach my aim is to utilise each dancer's immense capability to overcome their trials and flourish into who they wish to be.
Some more fun facts about me:
I love to look after my many plants. I generally enjoy most genres of music (except maybe screamo). I'm very interested and always like to strive towards living a slow, sustainable and simple lifestyle. My husband and I have been married for almost 3 years. We have adopted a gorgeous cat called Dixie, and become parents last year!
Why Dance Care Australia?
It is a tough, brutal, crazy industry out there and as young people we are thrusted into an industry often forced to navigate all of it on our own.
Having had first hand experience of the numerous disappointments and challenges of unsuccessful auditions, politics within the industry, recovering from an injury and haunting thoughts of comparison. My belief, after coming out the other side of these adversities is that no one should ever have to go through them alone, yet so many of us do.
Dance Care Australia has been created to be a safe place for dancers of all ages to be heard and understood in whichever capacity they need by someone who knows what it can be like to be a dancer. It is a place for the dancer to be able to build upon their own strengths so that they can spend more time focusing on the one thing they truly love, dancing.
On DCA's blog you will find many articles and stories from various dancers and myself (Caitlin), sharing how we coped (or maybe didn't cope) in the past. It is our intention for you to see and know that you are not alone, nor the only one that faces difficulties that might be something similar to what you are experiencing.
So if you feel as though you might be in a place where you would like to develop more strategies to help you overcome difficulties, or feel as though you need a person to talk to about what is happening for you in the studio head over to our services page to see what support we offer.
You, are not alone.
