About Dr Paul Gibney

Dr Paul Gibney is a psychotherapist, a family therapist and a psychotherapy theorist. Since 1988, Paul has conducted a full time private practice in psychotherapy, couples therapy, family therapy and professional supervision in Brisbane.
Before starting in private practice, Paul worked as a social worker in short term, medium stay and long-term psychiatric settings for a decade.

Paul’s formal training, beyond his undergraduate degree in Social Work include postgraduate clinical trainings in Gestalt Therapy, Family Therapy and Psychoanalytic Casework. He also has a comprehensive understanding of Jungian theory and practice. Paul’s academic training included the completion of a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1993 (University of Queensland).

His first published paper was “The Theory and Practice of Therapeutic Error” in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy in June, 1985. He has since published over 30 academic papers in journals, and as book chapters. Paul’s 2003 text The Pragmatics of Therapeutic Practice has been a set text in five Masters of Counselling courses in universities throughout Australia.

Teaching psychotherapy, family therapy and systemic theory and practice has been a consistent aspect of Paul’s professional life since 1984. For 10 years, he held a part-time senior lectureship in the Social Work Department at the University of Queensland, where he taught Advanced Casework and Family Therapy. He has conducted workshops and seminars throughout Australia and New Zealand since 1988, and has been invited to, and has delivered over 20 keynote addresses at psychotherapy, counseling and guidance, and family therapy conferences over the last three decades.

Both theoretically and practically, Paul’s passion has been articulating everyday practice and developing and describing theory that will assist a practitioner in the maelstrom of their craft and art as it occurs in a multitude of settings. Paul’s approach is integrative. His doctoral thesis “A Post Modern science Description of the Therapeutic Domain” developed a description of therapy by integrating Psychoanalytic and Family Therapy theory and practice with the concerns of time and context, and then compared that description to the description of therapy available in the writings of post-modern science.

His enduring concerns have been with “everyday practice” and “putting therapy to work”. In his ongoing case consultations and group supervision forums in residential care settings, child protection settings, leadership forums and mental health settings, Paul aims at making complex theory fit the practical problems at hand to produce very pragmatic and workable outcomes.

The Psychotherapy Workshop

The Psychotherapy Workshop is a dynamic forum developed by PracticeFive P/L. It showcases Dr. Paul Gibney presenting his unique understanding of the psychotherapy field in a manner that invites you to reflect on and to strengthen your own practice through an interactive process. Paul is excited to present this studio of therapeutic thought: this “ecology of ideas” in which we might all expand and deepen what it means to be “therapeutic”.