The Australia and New Zealand Chapter of the
Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ANZ ACBS)
Who We Are
ANZ ACBS is a registered health promotion charity dedicated to alleviation of human suffering and advancement of human well-being through research and practice grounded in contextual behavioural science.
ANZ ACBS was founded in 2009 and is a community for researchers, educators and practitioners promoting and advancing contextual behavioural science. It is the home of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Relational Frame Theory (RFT) and Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (FAP) in our region.
What We Do
As a chapter of the worldwide Association for Contextual Behavioral Science, ANZ ACBS works to spread contextual behavioural science (CBS) through our region by
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creating opportunities for members to connect and share research, resources, and practice experience
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hosting high quality professional development events attracting local and international researchers and trainers
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working to promote inclusion of contextual behavioural science to the curriculum of psychology, education, medicine, social work, and allied health
Our conferences and training events typically have a strong focus on ACT, RFT, FAP and the emerging field of process-based therapies. Therapeutic approaches including Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) are also frequently featured because of similarity and compatibility with CBS approaches.
Our Guiding Principles and Values
The popular ACBS phrase of “living and leading with our head, heart and hands,” was introduced by Steve Hayes, one of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy founders, as a model for promoting vital lives and communities. So, what does this phrase mean specifically for us at ANZ ACBS?
The Head. Our Science: What We Do.
The head (or foundation) of our work at ANZ ACBS is cultivated at the intersection of basic science, applied science, and practice. The head is what we do (i.e., promote local CBS research and scholarship, organise our regional conference and practical workshops, etc.) in the service of the heart (the why).
The Heart. Our Purpose: Why We Do it.
The heart is the compass that directs what we do and how we do it. The ANZ ACBS heart is focused on researching, teaching and disseminating powerful, empirically supported, accessible and compassionate ways of alleviating human suffering and connecting people to vitality.
The Hands. Our Community and Values: How We Do It.
Stepping up and committing to our organisation’s values requires the cultivation, nourishment and cooperation of a local and global CBS community - the hands. Our community is made up of local board members and staff, local members across Australia and New Zealand, and international ACBS members. Social change is consciously built into our organisation. As a community, ANZ ACBS is committed to values of accessibility, transparency, pragmatism (doing what works), generous scholarship and practice, and philanthropy.
Meet the ANZ ACBS Board
Eric Morris
President
Dr Eric Morris is a Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at Northern Health, Melbourne, Australia. Eric teaches and supervises provisional psychologists undertaking masters-level training in a university setting. He has over twenty-five years’ experience working as a clinical psychologist in Australia and the United Kingdom, engaging people with complex mental health problems and their families in public mental health services. Through ACTUALISE Lab at La Trobe University, Eric researches Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as an intervention for recovery from psychosis, anxiety, insomnia, to support caregivers, and for workplace resilience training. He is a co-editor of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Mindfulness for Psychosis, co-author of the self-help guide, ACTivate Your Life, co-author of the group treatment manual, ACT for Psychosis Recovery, and co-editor of Psychological Interventions for Psychosis: Towards a Paradigm Shift. Eric is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. He is a Fellow of the Association for Contextual Behavioural Science.
Tamar Black
President-Elect
Tamar Black is an educational and developmental psychologist with 20 years’ experience working as a school psychologist and 24 years’ experience in private practice. She is the author of ACT FOR TREATING CHILDREN (New Harbinger Publications, 2022), and THE ACT WORKBOOK FOR KIDS (New Harbinger Publications, 2024). She is an approved supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia, and the Australian Psychological Society’s College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists, and provides clinical supervision to early-career and experienced psychologists. She is passionate about using ACT with children and adolescents, and loves training professionals in ACT who work with children and adolescents, as well as parents and schools.
Lauren Lawson
Immediate Past President
Lauren (she/her) is a Clinical Psychologist and Lecturer in Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychology & Public Health at La Trobe University. She has been practicing within an ACT framework for the past 5 years, including supervising and training provisional psychologists. Lauren is co-director of the ACTUALISE Lab at La Trobe University, which aims to bring together researchers, clinicians, and students who have an interest in contextual behavioural science.
Lisa Mastin-Purcell
Secretary
Silvia Violante
Treasurer
Silvia is a Clinical and Counselling Psychologist and Board Approved Supervisor who has worked in non-for profit, tertiary and private settings across Mexico and Australia. She currently works at Victoria University as a Psychology Clinic Manager where the general public can access affordable and accessible care. Through her work, Silvia aims to shape policy and practice frameworks that meet the needs of the community. She is an advocate for the provision of timely, collaborative and high quality care as a way to reduce social inequity. Silvia also provides supervision to Postgraduate students, Psychologists and other mental health professionals. She holds a strong interest in perinatal mental health and drug and alcohol which are the main areas in her clinical work. She is passionate about disseminating ACT, CBS and RFT which inform her clinical and supervision work.
Tim Carey
Member-at-Large
Tim is a Sydney based psychologist who came to the field in his 30s. He also spent 15 years working in disability as a carer; and before that, he was overseas for many years having a jolly good time. Tim’s approach to psychology has always been to go where you’re doing the most good. He currently finds this to be when working with adults and teenagers using mindfulness-based therapies and aspects of eastern and western philosophy. Originally from Melbourne, Tim settled into the Sydney scene and loves it here. However, he does miss the pizza, steamed dim sims and live music that Melbourne always does better. He’s also a passionate Hawthorn supporter. His favourite pastime is playing the drums but feels the label ‘musician’ to be an overreach of his percussion abilities, so would never dare describe himself as such.
Georgina Cox
Member-at-Large
I am a Senior Clinical Psychologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in Melbourne, with the Psychology Service, and the Neurodevelopment and Disability team. I support the psychological wellbeing of children and young people on their journey with a chronic illness or disability or following an injury, as well as providing both individual support to parents of hospital patients, in both individual and group settings. I also especially enjoy the opportunity to support the emotional wellbeing of medical teams, and demonstrate the value of psychology within the multidisciplinary approach. Alongside this, I am a board approved supervisor, regularly supervising postgraduate students and staff members in various teams across the hospital, as well as teaching into postgraduate psychology courses and presenting at national and international conferences on the use of ACT with a variety of populations. I also provide supervision to psychologists working in the community. Prior to these roles, I have worked in private practice, as well as in a number of research roles, including as a senior research fellow in the Complex Autism Team at Monash University, and the Suicide Prevention team at Orygen. I have extensive expertise in conducting Systematic Reviews, producing best practice guidelines, as well as holding editorial positions for both the Cochrane Collaboration and BMJ Pediatrics. I have a passion for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and more recently Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy (EMDR), and finding ways to use these approaches flexibly with children, young people and parents.
Michael Swadling
Member-at-Large
Michael is a clinical psychologist and registered supervisor, working primarily at RMIT University as a student counsellor. He has been the facilitator of a Melbourne ACT Therapist peer consultation group since 2015. He is an organisers of the Melbourne ACT in the Pub event series, and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 ANZ ACBS Conferences. He is passionate about community-building and sharing ACT, CBS, and behaviourism. His clinical work has focused on tertiary student counselling with areas of special interest in neurodivergence, impostor syndrome, and trauma. His research has focused on the wellbeing and burnout of psychologists and other human service professionals, and recently on university staff and student experiences of psychosocial safety climate, as well as role engagement and exhaustion.
Vin Allen
Member-at-Large
NZ Representative
Vin is a PhD student at the University of Auckland in the department of Psychological Medicine. He and his team are currently working on a project to develop digital tools to support the delivery of Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (fACT) in New Zealand primary care contexts. He's a big fan of third-wave behavioural therapies such as ACT and fACT, and extending the use of these to solve population health problems is a primary focus of the team's research. Mental health research is one of Vin's passions, and he feels very lucky to be able to make a living out of doing research in this area. He's always been passionate about the philosophy of Behaviourism, and credit's B. F. Skinner’s Radical Behaviourism for initially sparked his interest in Relational Frame Theory, and subsequently Contextual Behavioural Sciences. These approaches underlie all of his research endeavours, and he's keen to be a part of a community of fellow CBS researchers.
Ellie Woodrow
Student Representative
Ellie (she/her) is a Master of Clinical Psychology student at La Trobe University with a background in youth mental health, crisis support, AOD work, and the music industry. She feels fortunate to have worked with an amazing array of young people at Orygen over the past three years, prioritising an approach that is creative, down-to-earth, and prioritises quality of life. Ellie is an enthusiastic advocate of third-wave therapies, and has found ACT in particular to be both a refreshing therapeutic approach and personal life philosophy. She’s currently in a stage of training where the learning is thick and fast, and she relishes every chance to deepen her understanding and application of CBS across different settings
Aaron O'Connell
Member at Large
NZ Representative
I’m a New Zealand clinical psychologist and clinical lead for a new online FACT service. I grew up on a Canterbury sheep farm, studied at Otago University, and have worked across Otago, Canterbury, and Nelson–Marlborough, as well as living in the UK for 7 years. Over the past 30 years in adult mental health, I’ve focused on helping people with anxiety, depression, and behaviour change, and on improving access to good psychological care. My background is in CBT but I suddenly switched to contextual behavioural approaches, and I’m especially interested in Focused Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (FACT).
Board members are volunteers, elected annually by the membership for a term of 2 years for most roles, and 3 years for the role of president (1 year as president-elect, 1 year as president, and 1 year as past president).