ABOUTDALLAS BENTLEY
Bio
Throughout 2023-2025 Dallas has primarily worked for NSW health and NGO’s in the Northern Rivers area with associated contract roles in counselling in Canberra with Australian National University (ANU).
A registered Counsellor and Social Worker with a long history supervising and lecturing at universities and training colleges nationally and abroad.
Dallas’ ‘therapeutic style’ has been described as authentic and warm where clients can feel at ease and develop trust.
Dallas founded Bentley Group in 2013.
He is currently writing several anti-bullying programs for teenagers and considering his PhD subject area.
Dallas enjoys singing and dance and advocates this as the best ‘medicine’, staying fit, composing music and stand up comedy routines.
Origins of Working as a Professional in Men’s Group Work Facilitation
“In 1997 I was initiated into the group-work healing catharsis of Lakota Indian Sweat lodge ceremony and was introduced to my first mentor in clinical psychology John Falcon”.
– Dallas Bentley
History Of Men’s Health Movement in Australia
The men’s health and wellbeing movement grew from a general need in the community combined with the new emerging literature in the post-modernist movements and the fourth wave of psychotherapy.
Projects including the formation of the nation-wide online counselling service Men’s-line brought more attention to men’s mental health needs in general.
In Northern New South Wales, the ‘Fatherhood Project’ gathered momentum and celebrated all that was ‘good’ in men.
It is from these origins that I draw my current framework and orientation to ‘mens-work’
– Dallas Bentley
DALLAS BENTLEY
(Registration Number: 17383)
DALLAS BENTLEY
Senior Registered Counsellor and Psychotherapist (Registration Number: 17383)
DALLAS BENTLEY
The origins of Dallas’s professional development began under the mentoring and guidance of clinical psychologist John Falcon.
Entering university after a successful early career in ballet, children’s eduction theatre programs and professional singing, he was accepted into one of Australia’s first Masters in Counselling accredited degree’s at the Queensland University of Technology.
This course focused on creating future leaders and supervisors in the counselling industry and utilised ‘reflecting teams’ for supervision and for group-work and narrative approaches to clinical assessment and intervention.
Journey with the masters
PRACTITIONERS THAT HAVE INFLUENCED OUR PROFESSIONAL FRAMEWORK
Michael White was an Australian social worker and family therapist. He is known as the founder of narrative therapy, and for his significant contribution to psychotherapy and family therapy, which have been a source of techniques adopted by other approaches. He is also particularly known for his work with children and Indigenous Aboriginal communities, as well as with schizophrenia, anorexia/bulimia, men’s violence, and trauma.
Arnold Mindell is an American author, therapist, and teacher in the fields of transpersonal psychology, body psychotherapy, social change, and spirituality. He is known for extending Jungian dream analysis to body symptoms, promoting ideas of ‘deep democracy, and interpreting concepts from physics and mathematics in psychological terms. Mindell is the founder of process oriented psychology, also called Process Work, a development of Jungian psychology influenced by Taoism, shamanism, and physics.