Workshops

Dr Jo Mitchell is an experienced Clinical and Coaching Psychologist and Co-founder of The Mind Room. She works with individuals and organisations to prevent burnout and mental illness and to build wellbeing.

Jo creates and delivers professional development experiences beyond the therapy room that promote good mental health, meaning and connection. She has 20+ years experience working with industries including sport, medical, technology, art and cultural institutions. Jo is motivated by workplace collaborations that create sustainable health and social change.

Jo has an applied and academic interest in wellbeing science – including ACT, positive psychology, values and mindfulness - and completed the first Australian PhD in this field. She is a regular media commentator, speaker, university lecturer and facilitator on mental health and wellbeing science.

As a past Australian representative athlete she still loves to be outdoors running, hiking, and cycling, albeit noticeably slower these days.

Michael is Co-founder of The Mind Room and an accredited Sport and Performance Psychologist. Michael believes the key to engaging workshops is knowing your audience needs, sharing evidence-based research knowledge, and creating opportunity to apply relevant ideas and skills.

Michael has worked in the mental health field since 1999 and prior to co-founding The Mind Room, worked as a senior facilitator at Beyond Blue and a consultant for the AFL Players Association.

He now leads the Sport and Performance team at The Mind Room and regularly facilitates performance and wellbeing workshops for A-League, AFL, Netball, Super Rugby and Australian Cycling. This includes working alongside playing groups, coaches, staff and whole organisations.

Elizabeth Murdoch is a Psychologist and Sport and Exercise Psychology Registrar, known for her relaxed and engaging facilitation style. With experience across a broad range of sport and performance settings, Elizabeth has worked with various teams and organisations, including swimming, rowing, rugby, and the performing arts. 

Elizabeth also has experience in school settings and private practice, working with adults and adolescents to address mental health and performance-related issues. She enjoys supporting both individuals and groups to reach their potential in performance, wellbeing, and mental health.

Her deep passion for helping individuals achieve their goals is informed by her own experiences in high-level sport. As a committed member of the swimming community, Elizabeth continues to compete in open water swims, maintaining a connection to her sport and personal development.

Bailey is a Performance Psychologist and Sport Psychology registrar. He has a down to earth facilitation style and strives to create a relaxed, open, and practical learning environment.

Bailey has experience working in a range of sports including AFL, Rugby Union, Tennis, Taekwondo and Triathlon, across individual, team and organisational levels. He has a particular interest in supporting rural and regional athletes in developing performance skills for all aspects of life. Bailey has also worked within other performance environments such as ballet and dance.

In his spare time, Bailey can be found on the tennis court or out capturing sporting moments on camera.

Jo is an experienced psychologist, facilitator and mediator. She works with individuals, groups and workplaces on mental health, wellbeing and quality of life.

Jo has applied and academic experience working with trauma, grief, loss, depression and anxiety. She is trained in a variety of different evidence-based therapies such as Trauma-focussed CBT, ACT, Narrative Therapy and EMDR.

Jo loves all things dance, food, music and craft-related. She confesses to being a little too enthusiastic about research showing the mental health benefits of dance, knitting and crochet.

Mike Hines is a Psychologist with a passion for helping people function at their best. His expertise lies in the related fields of Mindfulness and Wellbeing Science and he has worked extensively with individuals, schools, and businesses throughout his career. His passion for mindfulness stems from a personal meditation practice and professional development spanning 23 years.

Mike has spent the past four years as lead facilitator and mindfulness expert at Smiling Mind where he was responsible for the design and delivery of workshops and training across their school, workplace and general community programs. Mike now consults to individuals and schools on the intersection of mindfulness, wellbeing and performance, as well as developing and delivering corporate and community workshops for us here at The Mind Room. His work as a Psychologist follows a successful career as a singer-songwriter and Mike can occasionally still be found in the recording studio.

Dean Cooper is a facilitator and performance psychologist with experience in a broad range of sport and performance settings where he has worked on an individual, team/group and organisational level.

Dean has additional experience working in school settings as well as private practice where he enjoys working with adults experiencing a broad range of presentations.

Dean has experience facilitating workshops on a variety of wellbeing and performance topics in business and sporting sectors including Olympic and A-League groups.

Shane is a community psychologist with a wealth of experience facilitating reflective practice groups for mental health workers, teachers, and senior community leaders. He is an accredited facilitator for the Neurosequential Model in Reflection and Supervision (NMRS), having completed an intensive six-month training. His passion for this work reflects his values system and belief in strength-based approaches. He has a calm, warm and wise presence that infuses his supervision, training and therapy work.

Shane currently balances his time between providing supervision, facilitating reflective practice groups, delivering training and providing psychological therapy to individuals. He has had diverse work experience across youth homelessness, forensic, sport, and child and family services.

Through her down-to-earth humour, Clinical Psychologist Caitlyn Mackenzie works to help break down the stigma attached to mental health. Caitlyn is a strong believer that a little knowledge can go a long way in helping us work better with the brains and bodies we've been given and the life experiences we've had.

Caitlyn’s interest in workshop facilitation comes from a desire to reach out to, educate and help more people improve their wellbeing than she can through private practice alone. A passion for working with athletes, stemming from her own sporting background, has helped Caitlyn to also be recently selected to facilitate workshops alongside the AFL and AIS, and she has established a webinar series to allow continued education throughout lockdown for the families she works with at The Royal Children's Hospital.

Mel is a Psychologist with 20+ years of facilitation experience in a diverse range of public, private and not-for-profit workplaces.

Her focus is on workplace health, wellbeing and performance and is influenced by her training in neuroscience and organisational psychology. She understands and relishes the complexities of business leadership, team and individual performance.

Melissa enjoys connections and collaborations with a diverse range of people, approaches and cultures – which extends from her professional life through to travelling adventures.