01-About – I Am Ready Psychology

Meet Trisnasari

Welcome to I Am Ready Psychology. I’m a community psychologist with an interest in the wellbeing of creative people and the therapeutic value of community arts.

My name is Trisnasari (Trisna) Fraser. “I Am Ready” is a translation of the Fraser clan motto “Je Suis Prest”. Trisnasari is a Javanese name derived from Sanskrit. I have expertise from extensive research, practice and lived experience in cultural diversity, polycultural identity and intercultural arts programs for social connection.

My practice focuses on optimising the wellbeing of clients in creative communities, consulting on issues of cultural diversity, and intercultural arts program development and evaluation.

Qualifications and experience

I am a Registered Psychologist with Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA) with an area of practice endorsement in Community Psychology. As well as working in private practice, I am a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne. I convene the Creativity and Wellbeing Research Initiative and guest lecture in performing arts and music programs at the University of Melbourne. I have lectured and developed curriculum for counselling and psychology programs at Victoria University and conducted suicide prevention and postvention research in the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health for Sax Institute, Tasmanian Department of Health, and Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network.

For close to a decade I co-directed a performing arts studio and agency and have continued to direct and produce intercultural performance productions. I have performed and produced shows in The Famous Spiegeltent, Arts Centre Melbourne, Palladium at Crown, Regent Theatre, Memo Music Hall, Fed Square, Hi Fi Bar and Ballroom, Metro Nightclub, and Revolver for clients including National Australia Bank, Louis Vuitton, and Michael Gudinski. I have performed and conducted workshops interstate and abroad. Prior to this I worked as an analyst and management consultant for five years, first at a boutique consulting company, then Deloitte, assisting clients in the financial services, manufacturing industries and public service sector with program and culture change management, and process redesign.

I bring a unique blend of lived experience, psychological, cultural and artistic knowledge. Multicultural Arts Victoria commended these qualities.

“Your dance experience, choreography skills and cultural sensitivity were crucial to the success of this project.”

“Trisnasari created such a generous space for us to remember that counselling is inherently creative and that, at our core, we are all still kids trying to make sense of our worlds. Creativity becomes a doorway to freedom, but one that is always shaped by a person’s cultural context, lived experience, and resources.”