ISPS Australia Board
The ISPS Board is made up of people with a wide range of interests and experience, all of whom donate their time voluntarily, and all of whom are highly committed to the common aim of advancing education, training and knowledge of mental health professionals in the treatment and prevention of psychotic mental disorders for the public benefit.
Alethea Griffin (QLD)
Treasurer
Alethea provides counselling and psychotherapeutic support to individuals who have been harmed through sexual violence. She has experience working with people in immense distress including experiencing extreme and unusual states. Alethea has trained in the Hearing Voices approach through the HV Network Ireland and is a passionate advocate of the approach. Alethea has a BA (Hons) in Psychology completed in her native Ireland and a Masters in Counselling and Psychotherapy from the University of Adelaide where she held the position of Associate Lecturer for a number of years. Alethea now lives in the Far North of Queensland and is excited to join the Board of ISPS Australia. Alethea characterises her love of talking and learning about Psychosis/unusual states as obsessional. She spends a great deal of time reading about the work and approaches of R.D. Laing, C.G. Jung, George Atwood, J.W. Perry, Christopher Bollas, Danielle Knafo and Lionel Corbett to name a few. Alethea is deeply passionate about developing and advocating for a more nuanced and humane approach to understanding and responding to Psychosis. She believes in non-medicalising and non-pathologising responses to human distress.
Begonya Ward
Secretary
Begonya brings a wealth of lived experience as a family and carer and a passion for advocating for marginalized voices in the mental health arena. from a culturally diverse background, she has lived in various countries, gaining unique insights and perspectives along the way. Currently based in Western Australia, Begonya is deeply engaged in disability advocacy and mental health education. Her journey includes serving as a lived experience educator at Curtin University in Perth since 2020. Furthermore, she is a fellow of the LETS LEAD academy program at Yale University, where she continues to refine her leadership skills and amplify the voices of those often overlooked in the discourse. Begonya’s commitment to fostering inclusion, equity, and empowerment underscores her dedication to driving positive change in the mental health landscape.
Dr Amit Banerjee
Dr Amit Banerjee is a recovery-oriented general adult psychiatrist with interests in social and critical psychiatry and the addictions. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and completed a Masters of Addictive Behaviours degree from Monash University in 2018. He has worked in the suburb of Midland, Western Australia since January 2001. He was the inaugural Head of Department of Psychiatry for St John of God Midland Public Hospital in 2015 until August 2020. He currently works as a consultant psychiatrist with the headspace Early Psychosis team in Midland. He has run an outpatient private practice in Midland since 2007.
Dr Banerjee takes a critical view on mental health diagnosis and treatment, which has the potential to offer different treatment options to clients who present to mental health practitioners in distress. He is not averse to using medications but is keen not to over-emphasize their role.
Amanda Aiyana (QLD)
Chair
Amanda is a person of Lived Experience of trauma, emotional distress, diagnostic, labels and systemic trauma as well as experience supporting her youngest son on his own journey of recovery which ignited a passionate desire to advocate and educate from a lived experience perspective. Her special interest areas drive her to offer alternative spiritual and neurodiverse frameworks of understanding ‘psychosis’ and mental distress. Amanda is a specialised Educator lecturing as a lived experience academic at Curtin University, Western Australia within the disciplines to undergraduate and post graduate levels.
In addition to her lived experience educating and assessing work at Curtin, she consults independently, in the public and private mental health sector through her business Merkabah Consulting. It is her endeavour to add value to the already rich wealth of knowledge and wisdom of her fellow board members, as they continue to expand the education of alternative ‘treatments’ (being with) ‘psychosis’.