Workshop Practitioners

Hala Abdelnour: Recognise the Power of Shame as a Catalyst for Self-Evolution

Hala is the CEO and Founder of the Institute of non-violence, a service that was established to support family violence response across Australia. The Institute offers advanced family violence training programs, clinical supervision and therapeutic services to clients who are using or experiencing violence. It also works to eradicate systemic racism and misogyny.

She has delivered numerous Men’s Behaviour Change programs, and specialises in working with shame and trauma, intersectionality, cultural safety and group facilitation skills.

Hala has spoken at various local, national, and international conferences, and has featured on several podcasts, ABC and SBS news radio and TV. Key topics she presents on and is passionate about include:

Cultural safety and decolonising institutions and practices
The intersections between gender and race
Feminist leadership
Workplace equity and inclusion
Gender-based violence
The interconnectedness between family violence and other forms of social violence and inequities

Hala lives and works on the lands of the Dharawal people and acknowledges their elders as continuous traditional custodians of the lands, species and waterways.

John Arden: Remodeling Mental Health: Neuroscience, Epigenetics, and Mental States

John Arden, PhD, ABPP, is the author of 15 books (translated into 20 languages), including his most recent, Rewire Your Brain 2.0, Mind-Brain-Gene: Toward Psychotherapy Integration. Brain2Brain, The Brain Bible, as well as Brain-Based Therapy with Adults and Brain-Based Therapy with Children and Adolescents.

Dr. Arden previously served as Director of Training in Mental Health for Kaiser Permanente in the Northern California region. He oversaw the training programs in 24 medical centres where over 150 postdoctoral residents and interns are trained each year. This was one of the largest mental health training programs in the world. He has presented seminars and workshops in over 30 countries and in all US States.

Alberto Barsellini: Tango as Healing Connection

Alberto Barsellini is an accomplished Argentine tango dancer, teacher and performer with more than a decade of international touring experience. Since 2014 he has presented workshops, performances and exhibitions across Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America, including multi-month tours in Australia and Europe and recent world tours spanning Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Poland and Norway.

His career includes extensive participation in major tango championships, with finalist and prize-winning results in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Championship, the Buenos Aires City Championship, the Intermilongas Championship and the World Salon Tango Championship. He has also performed with distinguished ensembles including Corporación Tangos Alumnos Ballet and the Ligas Mayores Ballet at the Kirchner Cultural Center.

Alongside his artistic work, Alberto has contributed to therapeutic and community-based initiatives, delivering seminars at STARTTS in Sydney that apply tango as a tool to support trauma recovery among refugees and survivors of torture. He has taught in Buenos Aires and abroad, and regularly performs in some of the city’s most renowned milongas.

Jessica Christie-Sands: Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR): Healing of the Shock at the Core of Traumatic Experience

Dr Jessica Christie-Sands is a Consultant Psychologist registered with the Health and Care Professional Council (HCPC), a Chartered Scientist (CSci) and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPs). She is an EMDR Europe Approved Consultant, a Certified Advanced Sensorimotor Psychotherapist and a Certified Neurosequential Practitioner in both NMT and NME. Her current research interest lies on the interface between embryology, prenatal adversity, and perinatal mental health with a particular focus on the neurobiology of early life shock and pre-attachment wounding and the painful presence of absence. She is co-author of the original paper on DBR with Dr Frank Corrigan as well as two book chapters focusing on early life disruptions in connection and their impact on the developing capacity for attachment.

Cornelia Elbrecht: Exploring the Implicit Memory Systems Through Haptic Perception With Clay

Cornelia Elbrecht, AThR, SATh, SEP is a leader in ground breaking art therapy techniques with a particular focus on healing trauma. An art therapist with over 40 years experience she is a renowned author, educator and the Founder and Director of the Institute for Sensorimotor Art Therapy.

Cornelia studied Expressive Arts Therapies at the School for Initiatic Therapy in the Black Forest, Germany and holds degrees in fine arts and arts education along with extensive postgraduate training in Jungian and Gestalt Therapy, Bioenergetics and at the Somatic Experiencing Training Institute (SETI).

Best known for her cutting edge work with Guided Drawing® and Clay Field Therapy®, she holds regular workshops around the world and at Claerwen Retreat in Apollo Bay, Australia - an internationally respected arts therapy education facility. Author of numerous books, she runs accredited online courses for art therapists, educators and mental health professionals looking to understand a body focused art therapy approach to trauma therapy. Find out more.

Amber Gray: The Heart of Belonging: Polyvagal-Informed Movement Therapies for Survivors

Dr. Amber Elizabeth Lynn Gray is an award winning dance movement therapist, human rights psychotherapist, and longtime Continuum and yoga instructor. She has worked for 28 years with survivors of human rights abuses, war, torture, oppression, collective and historical trauma, locally and globally.

Equally artist, advocate, author, educator, mystic, poet and therapist, she, her clients and mentors co-created Survivor-& Spirit centered Polyvagal-informed approaches to Somatic & Dance/Movement Therapy for trauma that are holistic and emergent. A lover of all things wild, Amber regularly facilitates eco-somatic retreats for survivors and caregivers. She consults to organizations world-wide on staff care programming, and is a fierce advocate for self-care, self-compassion and self-respect.