Michelle O'Sullivan

Senior Occupational Therapist

Mental Health OT (BAMH Endorsed)

Hypermobility is 'my thing'. It's where my knowledge, experience and training combine. It's where I feel I help clients best.

In practice, I saw a lot of joint hypermobility and it made sense to me. I could visualise it, explain it, teach it.

It is where my training and lived experience collide in the best possible way.

I allowed it to become my thing in 2010 when I started my first private practice, HypermobilOT, on Sydney's Northern Beaches. I saw kids and adults with hypermobility conditions of all kinds, ranging from a few hypermobile joints to severe connective tissue disorders like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and more serious ones like Marfan Syndrome & Loeys-Dietz Syndrome.

People came from all over the country.

Others recognised it, too.

Hypermobility is my thing.

From the minute I started seeing clients with hypermobility, I also started seeing:

• Families struggling to find information

• Individuals feeling alone and unsupported

• The full spectrum of grief & loss

• Trauma and its impact on well-being

That is where the need for my Graduate Certificate of Loss, Grief & Trauma Counselling was realised.

As a Mental Health Endorsed Occupational Therapist, I am able to work with clients holistically. Humans are whole humans, not ones broken down into illnesses, body parts or diagnoses.

Having worked in this space for over 15 years, I refuse to see people as disconnected parts… Practising from the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance & Engagement, I see each client as a person with a mind (cognition), body (physical), emotions (affect) and life-sustaining force (spirit). These cannot be separated.

2025 Ehlers-Danlos Society Global Learning Conference

Panelist

• Collaborative Insights for Delivering Care & Support

• Collaborative Strategies to Empower Young People

Workshop Co-Facilitator

• Practical Strategies: Perspectives between Healthcare Professionals, Parents, & Children Living with EDS and HSD