About the author

I am Michael Wallis, the author of Animaception. I have worked as a counsellor for more than thirty years — in mental health services, correctional services, child protection, and family therapy — and I live and work on the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia. Much of that work has been with people doing it tough. I am a strong advocate for attachment theory and a provider of the Circle of Security parenting program.

Animaception began as a therapeutic model rather than a theory. Over those decades I kept noticing the same thing: the power of emotions in people's everyday lives, and the difference it made to teach about them. I drew on Paul Ekman's work on emotional expression, and used a set of his photographs to teach emotional recognition — I was repeatedly surprised at how quickly someone with no vocabulary for their feelings could begin to recognise and respond to what they had been missing.

I am, at heart, an observer. By watching, modelling, and testing against clinical and lived experience, I gradually arrived at an account of the mind at work. That was never the plan; it was the surprise at the end of a long road. In my view, emotion is not noise sitting on top of thought; it is a large part of how the mind decides what matters. The book is an attempt to set that out plainly enough that readers can weigh it for themselves.

Background

My qualifications include a Diploma of Counselling (Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors) and training in the Circle of Security parenting program. Over three decades I have held roles in welfare, social work, and correctional services, and across the mental health system — including managing regional mental health services and coordinating mental health promotion for Country Health SA — before moving into family therapy, counselling, and now private practice.

My counselling practice is at mwallistherapy.com.

Contact

For enquiries, contact me at admin@mwallistherapy.com.