PACFA West is the Western Australian Branch of PACFA. The Branch officially commenced operating on 1 July 2016. Individual members of PACFA in Western Australia receive automatic membership of PACFA West with their PACFA membership.
Activities will include:
- Providing continuing professional development
- Providing opportunities for networking and peer support
- Undertaking local outreach
- Promoting PACFA to local education providers and students
- Building a vibrant community of practitioners in a particular geographic area
- Providing opportunities for practitioners in regional and rural areas to participate
PACFA West Leadership Group
Maxine Santich (Co-Convenor) has 15 years’ experience working as a counsellor and psychotherapist. She completed a Masters degree in Psychotherapy & Counselling and has completed Gestalt therapy training. Maxine is an accredited Breathwork practitioner, has studied and participated in Family Constellations for over 25 years, obtained Diploma level in Natural Therapies and trained and worked as a fitness instructor. Maxine is working in private practice in Busselton and is a volunteer counsellor with the Busselton Hospice Bereavement team.
Philippa Colgan (Co-Convenor) is a psychodynamic counsellor and psychotherapist working in private practice, and also holds qualifications in anthropology and public health. Phlippa is a member of the teaching staff for the Counselling programme at the University of Notre Dame Australia (Fremantle), and a trainee in the 2019 cohort of clinicians in the five-year training with the Association for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy WA (APPWA)
Sue (Susan) Etheridge is an experienced counsellor, psychotherapist and supervisor working in a not-for-profit organisation. She works with individuals, couples and families, co-facilitates a group for male perpetrators of family domestic violence and has a great passion for supervising Masters students of counselling and psychotherapy. Sue also runs a private practice, providing counselling and psychotherapy to individuals, couples and clinical supervision face to face or via Zoom. Sue’s background is in nursing, having trained as a registered nurse in the UK, specialising in neurological nursing and rehabilitation before moving to Australia 30 years ago. She has since completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a Master in Social Science (Counselling and Psychotherapy), followed by a six-month supervision course with Supervision WA. Sue is also a laughter yoga facilitator. Sue is a clinical member of PACFA and an accredited clinical supervisor.
Rosealeen Tamaki is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in private practice in Swanbourne. Combining her experiences of personal analysis and theoretical studies, she offers both long-term psychotherapy and short-term counselling. Rosealeen taught the undergraduate unit ‘Therapeutic Practice with Older Age Adults’, in the Psychotherapy and Counselling program at Edith Cowan University for seven years. She finds the combination of working with individuals and couples in psychotherapy and teaching in the university sector brings further experience and thinking to being a person as an individual as well as within a personal relationship. Rosealeen is interested in and involved with various groups for professional learning as well as voluntary roles in professional and community groups. She has been a member of PACFA since 2003 and has variously volunteered as a committee member of PACAWA and currently as a member of the PACFA West leadership group.
Sally Hardwick raised a family of five children in the UK, before relocating to Australia in 1996. She graduated with a Diploma in Transactional Analysis in 2013, after several years of study, while working as a volunteer at the Spiers Centre in Heathridge and completed a Master of Social Science (Counselling and Psychotherapy) in the same year. Sally’s passion is working with couples. She undertook a two year Family and Relationship Therapy course at the William Street Family Therapy Centre in Perth, then completed a Certificate in Mental Health with Southern Cross University in 2021 to broaden her knowledge and address her concern about mental health issues in families. She currently works in private practice counselling couples.
Robin Fingher is a counsellor and clinical supervisor with a not-for-profit agency in Perth, holding a Master of Social Science (Counselling and Psychotherapy) and a Graduate Diploma in Coaching. Robin is also a member of the academic sessional staff at Edith Cowan University, facilitating units in the accelerated online Master of Counselling. Beyond working and research interests, you will often find Robin using visual arts and writing as insightful vehicles in meaning-making and mindfulness, her favourite self-care activities.
Contact PACFA West
Jan Resnick, PhD, is an internationally respected psychotherapist, couples counsellor, clinical supervisor and author whose work has spanned four decades, three continents, and has helped hundreds of people connect to what matters most: each other.From dwelling in new cultures across three different continents, to embracing life in Australia, Jan Resnick is passionate about mental health and personal development. Born in New York, Jan Resnick moved with his family from London after 17 years of training, practising and living in Europe. He completed two psychotherapy trainings there; one with the Guild of Psychotherapists and one with the Philadelphia Association. Much of that time was spent working with such notable figures in the field as R.D. Laing, John Heaton, Rosemary Gordon, and Christopher Bollas. Jan founded and ran two mental health and education charities in England; one in Oxford and one in London. In Perth, he founded a children’s charity called Australia Dreaming and a further charity called The Churchill Clinic (Inc.) which offered nationally accredited, recognized professional trainings for 18 years until 2008.Jan was the Founding President of the Psychotherapists and Counsellors’ Association of Western Australia; Founding Director of The Churchill Clinic, long-standing member of the Editorial Advisory Panel for the national journal Psychotherapy in Australia, Advisory Board member of Blue Knot Foundation (formerly ASCA – Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) and an accredited supervisor for psychotherapy by the Royal Australia/New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. In 2016, after 100 published articles and papers, Jan’s first book was published ‘How Two Love: Making Your Relationship Work and Last’, based on his work as a couples counsellor and marital therapist. The book has been successful in helping many couples improve their relationships and is widely acclaimed by readers.In 2022, Phoenix Publishing House (Oxford) will release Jan’s second book called ‘Meaning-Fullness, Developmental Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Mental Health’ (with a foreword by Nancy McWilliams). It has been described as “a masterpiece using theory, discussion and case studies to show what is central to therapeutic practice.” It is a critique of mainstream psychology and psychiatry and aims to elcidate how psychotherapy can best promote mental health. The book brings further development to Winnicott’s theory of creativity as elaborated in his last published work Playing and Reality.Jan lives in Perth, Western Australia, with his wife Cath. They have 6 children and 3 grandchildren. He is based in the Claremont Medical Centre and has practiced psychotherapy for over 46 years. And he has commenced writing his third book called The Psychoanalysis of Money, Telling Stories – watch this space!
What does it mean to be a professional psychotherapist? I profess a competence to respond to people in mental and emotional distress, to attend to personal issues, to assist couples in navigating the often difficult territory of whether or not to stay together and work at it, or to part company, and go separate ways.
The usual metaphors of practice refer to healing emotional injury, repairing damage and recovering from trauma. Many of us have incurred traumatic experiences in our distant past and only come to realize the consequences years or even decades down the track. There are all manner of personal issues that bring people to therapy. What makes my style of practice distinctive is a focus on the detail of each individual’s situation and history and then together creating effective strategies for improvement, and to relieve suffering, enhance understanding, to move on or adjust as needed and develop as a person.
As a supervisor, I work with trainees and qualified psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers, mental health practitioners, psychiatrists, developmental paediatricians,registrars, and other doctors, to improve and develop their clinical work. Supervision revolves mainly around confidential case discussions, sometimes in one-to-one sessions and sometimes in groups. Currently, I run five supervision groups for different professional groups including one legal firm supporting clients of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. As as a method for ongoing professional development, we can never exhaust the value of case discussions as every ‘case’ is different and so is every ‘therapist’.
The call to write has grown and continues to grow, I have over 100 publishing credits, mostly journal articles. My biggest writing project is a book series (see Current Projects) called The Meaningful Living Series and I now have the first book in print called How Two Love and subtitled Making your relationship work and last. It is based on my work as a couples counsellor and marital therapist.
Highlights of my career include:
- Over 40 years of clinical practice as a psychotherapist,
- Founded Amygdala Consulting with Cath, I remain a director there, see www.amygdala.com.au
- Founded The Churchill Clinic as Director of Training for 18 years from 1991 to 2008,
- I taught over 2000 classes, seminars and workshops there as well as overseeing the running of the school in general and functioning as Head of the Faculty,
- Founding President of the Psychotherapists & Counsellors Association of Western Australia, (Inc.), in 1993, and remained on the management committee for 10 years,
- I was awarded an Outstanding Achievement Award for my work there,
- I served on the Standing Committee of Educators and Trainers in Counselling and Psychotherapy for a number of years which involved regular meetings over East,
- That lead to the formation of the first national professional association for counselling and psychotherapy called PACFA, Psychotherapists & Counsellors Federation of Australia, and its register where I have been a Clinical Member,
- I served on the founding Management Committee and Training Committee there,
- I joined the Editorial Advisory Board of the national journal Psychotherapy in Australia from its second issue in 1994, and remained for 20 years,
- Advisory Board Member of ASCA (Adult Survivors of Child Abuse) now re-named The Blue Knot Foundation, and
- Editorial Advisory Board Member of Virtual Medical Centre and Virtual Psychiatry Centre, an online resource for doctors and the public,
- Accredited as a supervisor for psychiatry registrars (in psychotherapy) by the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (since 2007), and
- PhD in Psychology (Psychoanalysis), my dissertation was called The Psychosomatic Metaphor and subtitled, The Poetics of Healing,
- I was privileged to be taught by and receive my first 8 years of clinical supervision from R.D. Laing between 1976 and 1984,
- I was privileged to study with and receive many years of supervision with John Heaton between 1974 and 1990,
- I was privileged to study with and receive group supervision from Christopher Bollas, and
- I was privileged to have a training analysis with Rosemary Gordon from 1977 to 1983.
I owe an ongoing debt of gratitude to all of my teachers.
- Lastly, I have launched and presided over 4 separate charities in the UK and Australia, The Oxford Centre for Human Relations with the late Mary Duhig from 1976, Aesclepion (London) from 1982, Australia Dreaming (Perth) with the late Michelle Fox from 1998 and The Churchill Clinic, Inc., (Perth) from 1991 to 2008.
For a comprehensive account of my career including a list of publications and references, please email or message me (go to Contact) and request to peruse my résumé.
