Biographical Notes

Eva Balint is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist working in private practice in Sydney. Her interests include mother-infant psychotherapy, eating disorders, borderline personality disorders and the use of psychoanalytic interventions in the treatment of psychosis. She teaches and supervises for NSWIPP and RANZCP.

Paul Coombe is a psychiatrist and works in private practice as a psychoanalytic individual and group therapist in Melbourne. From 1990–93, he held the position of Overseas Senior Registrar in Psychotherapy at the Cassel Hospital, London. He is a member of the Australian Association of Group Psychotherapists and the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists. Recently his interests have extended to the origins of the group analytic field and especially the work at the Northfields Military Psychiatric Hospital in Birmingham during the Second World War.

Wayne Featherstone is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist currently practising in Melbourne and Bendigo. He also works with the Lighthouse Foundation providing reflective practice groups, supervision, and training for carers and clinicians working with homeless and traumatised youth. Previously he worked for 25 years in various adult psychiatry settings after originally training as a secondary teacher and then retraining as a social worker before completing the VAPP psychotherapy training course in 1987. He is a past president of the VAPP and currently serves as the chairman of the training committee.

Wayne has taught counselling skills and psychoanalytic theory in a number of tertiary settings and also in the training course. In 2015 he completed a PhD entitled The Aesthetic Domain of Psychoanalysis. His primary interests lie in the fields of post-Kleinian and post -Bionian theory, especially the work of various Italian authors who have developed what has become known as Bionian Field Theory, as well as the emerging field of Neuro-psychoanalysis.

Neil Maizels is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in Melbourne. He has published many clinical and theoretical papers​ — ​particularly in the post-Kleinian field. He also has a longstanding interest in the mutual enhancement and cross-fertilization of Psychoanalysis with the Arts, and contributes film reviews to Arena Magazine.

Laura Petrie is a Clinical Social Worker and Director of Clinical Services at the Lighthouse Foundation. In that role, Laura oversees a multidisciplinary team supporting young people in the out of home care and homelessness sectors. Laura has previously accumulated twenty years’ experience of working in individual and groups settings with parents and children who have experienced complex trauma and attachment problems, first with Odyssey House and then with the aboriginal children’s’ healing team.

Laura’s primary interests lie in advocacy and provision of systemic holding environments utilising trauma informed practice frameworks guided by psychoanalytic theory for those working with marginalised populations. Laura is a candidate in the Victorian Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists training programme and has a private practice based in Richmond, Victoria.

Dr Allan Shafer, Clinical Psychologist, is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in private practice in Melbourne, a socioanalytic organisation consultant and an international group relations consultant.

He is a member of the VAPP; was an Executive member of the PPAA and a past President of Group Relations Australia. He has published articles and chapters in professional psychotherapeutic as well as socioanalytic journals and books.

Allan has directed or consulted on the staff of Tavistock-style group relations conferences in Australia, the UK, India, China, Israel, Poland and Taiwan. He will is associate director of the Tavistock Institute’s 2019 Leicester Conference.

Mark R Thorpe (PhD) works in Auckland as a Clinical Psychologist and Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist at AUT University and Psychotherapy at Apollo. He held positions as Vice President of the South African Institute of Psychotherapy, Chair of the Cape Town Psychoanalytic Society, and Head of the Department of Psychology at AUT University.

Sally Young is a Senior Social Worker for Child and Youth Mental Health for Children’s Health Queensland and is in private practice in Brisbane. She is a committee member of the Queensland Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association and the Brisbane Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies. She has served on the executive of the Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of Australasia. Sally teaches for both BCPS courses and is a casual lecturer for the Masters of Mental Health, University of Queensland. She is a clinical member of the Australian Association of Family Therapy.