Dr Chris Walsh is a psychiatrist working in private practice in North Carlton (Melbourne, Australia). He has been working in psychiatry since 1985. In that time, he has worked in hospitals, jails, community settings, and drug and alcohol institutions.
In 1983, as a young doctor Chris did a short stint helping out at the Tibetan refugee hospital in Dharamsala. The Tibetan people's common sense, good humour and happy nature left a lasting impression on him.
Chris's daily mindfulness practice began eighteen months later, at the same time as he began working in psychiatry. As a result mindfulness has been organically integrated into his psychiatric practice from the very start. Chris has a special interest in applying mindfulness meditation practices to psychotherapy. He is formally trained in Self Psychology, but his psychotherapy integrates diverse theoretical frameworks, including cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and Gestalt.
Chris also works in the Drug and Alcohol treatment setting and has a strong commitment to promoting use of mindfulness and awareness of family issues in that area.
He is a member of The Family Alcohol and Drug Network (Fadnet) which is a gathering of professionals from the drug and alcohol field with a particular interest in family work. These professionals share a deep respect for families and a common belief in caring for family members affected by problematic substance use. They recognise and value the healing power within families, and also recognise the value of family-aware and family-inclusive practice in the treatment of alcohol and other drug difficulties.
Chris has taken a leading role in family constellation work in Australia. He runs regular workshops, sponsors senior European teachers, and is a foundation member of the Melbourne peer supervisions group. He has given presentations at Australian national professional conferences on both mindfulness and family constellations. Chris is also the founder and moderator of Constellation Talk a very active email chat group with almost 600 subscribers worldwide. He has presented this work around Australia and overseas in the USA, New Zealand and Singapore. He also coordinated the development of the website for the International sytemic Constellations Association (ISCA) www.isca-network.org
Chris has a breadth of experience both in his life as well as his work. When he was a medical student he took a year off from his studies. He spent this year travelling around Australia working as a labourer in factory and farm jobs. He has diverse interests including music, poetry and football and is fluent in Spanish.
