The Therapist

About the Therapist

Evan Player is a former serviceman (Army) with a strong family history of service. He was a keen sportsman playing AFL, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Judo and Jujitsu at an elite level. 

He presently is a certified coach in Rugby Union and Judo with a strong interest in helping people achieve peak performance in all areas of life. He comes from a blue-collar background and he has experience working with people who work in the Trades and a good understanding of the challenges faced by FIFO workers and their families, and people who are engaged in working with and protecting members of the public. Evan identifies strongly as a male and has a special interest in Men’s Mental Health.

He is a Psychotherapist and Credentialed Mental Health Nurse with over 25 years of experience supporting people with their mental health. Evan is a certified CBT therapist and has knowledge in a range of approaches such as Mindfulness Therapy, DBT, ACT, MBT, Bowen Family Therapy, Hobson’s Conversational Model, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, and Existential Psychotherapy

Evan is most strongly influenced by the work of Carl Jung.

Carl Gustav Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. The central concepts of analytical psychology is individuation —the lifelong psychological process of differentiation of the self out of each individual’s conscious and unconscious elements. Jung considered it to be the main task of human development. He created some of the best known psychological concepts, including synchronicity, archetypal phenomena, the collective unconscious, the psychological complex and extraversion and introversion. Jung’s form of therapy has been found to be especially helpful for people in the second half of life.

Experience

Evan began working with people in the Mental Health sector in 1996. He became a Registered Nurse in 1999 and a Registered Mental Nurse in the UK in 2001.

In 2004 he moved to Townsville for 18 months and stayed and built a life in the Townsville community. In 2007 he completed his Master’s Degree in Mental Health Nursing through the University of Southern Queensland. He became a Credentialed Mental Health Nurse in 2011 and a Fellow of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses (ACMHN) in 2016.

He has delivered numerous lectures at the International Conference of Mental Health Nursing, Townsville Hospital Grand Rounds, and at James Cook University on subjects influencing Mental Health such as Compassion, Coercion, Anxiety, Recovery, and Bullshit. He is currently completing a second Master’s Degree in Mental Health (Psychotherapy) at the University of Queensland. He is a member of the Psychotherapists and Counsellors Federation of Australia (PAFCA).

Book Reviews



The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

53 short and practical passages about Stoic Philosophy. So much better than Discourses. I intend to make reading and re-reading…

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Explaining Postmodernism

Explaining Postmodernism

Hicks provides a well-argued and well-researched investigation into Post-Modernism. He follows Post-Modernism roots from Foucault, Derrida, Rorty, Heidigger, Nietzsche, Rousseau,…

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The Evolution of Everything

The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge

I am slowly evolving into a Darwinist, or an evolutionist as a way of seeing and being in the world….

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The Road to Wigan Pier

The Road to Wigan Pier

This book hit a chord. 80 years old, as relevant to the social and political milieu we find ourselves in….

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Enlightenment Now

Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Another 500-page book was completed in just over seven weeks. It was highly readable and interesting. The prose never felt…

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The Prince – Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince

I have finally read “The Prince”. It has been referenced in a lot of the work I have been consuming….

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Poor Charlie’s Almanack

Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T Munger

I am still trying to figure out how to be in the world. Charles Munger (Warren Buffet’s silent business partner)…

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12 Rules for Life

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos

Those who agree with Jordan Peterson describe his work as basic common sense; those who disagree describe him as a…

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The Discourses – Epictetus

The Discourses

It took me six months to get through this one chapter at a time as part of my reading the…

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The Barefoot Investor

The Barefoot Investor

This book assumes you know nothing about how to accumulate and manage wealth, and is written at a beginner reader’s…

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Never Broken Songs are only half the story

Never Broken: Songs are only half the story

I have long admired Jewel the Artist. We have aged together. We got travelled whilst young, got married, and had…

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The Red Queen Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature

This book got me in a lot of trouble when I expressed the ideas contained within. It does not follow…

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Touchstones – Steve Mascord

Touchstones

This was a frustrating read because Mascord had all the components of a really good memoir, but they are just…

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The Emperor’s New Drugs

The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

This was interesting reading about the Anti-Depressants that I give to people as part of my professional life. Kirsch contention…

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Fight Club

Fight Club

Brilliant, a description of masculinity in crisis. “What you see in fight club is a generation of men raised by…

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An Introduction to the History of Psychology

An Introduction to the History of Psychology

This 754 page book took me almost a year to get through (it seems almost criminal to give it such…

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Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy

This book had me reflecting on my own climb upward the social ladder. I am also white and have come…

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One Nation Under Therapy

One Nation Under Therapy

The book arrives at the same conclusions as the philosophy underpinning the recovery movement. People are fundamentally well, and usually…

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Homo Deus

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

Profound and life changing – The book shifted how I see the world, my future, and has me contemplating how…

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The Course of Love

The Course of Love

I have liked Alain de Botton as a philosopher for sometime, so when my wife’s book club assigned this as…

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Capital in the 21st century

Capital in the 21st Century

After reading this book I read a quote that this was the book most likely to sit in a book…

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The Daily Stoic

The Daily Stoic

For the last 5 years I have been reading this religiously. The format of the book is you get one…

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The Denial of Dearth

The Denial of Death

The prose in this book is hard to read and the writing seems at times flowery and ambiguous, like a…

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A Guide to the Good life – The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

A Guide to the Good life – The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

Every now and then you read a book and a few pages in you know it is going to change…

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Cracked The Unhappy Truth About Psychiatry

Cracked: The Unhappy Truth About Psychiatry

I am always interested what the critics say about my craft, and often I learn stuff that makes me a…

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The life changing magic of not giving a fuck

The life changing magic of not giving a fuck

The second book in the not giving a fuck. It appears you can come to a number of conclusions about…

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The Sublet Art of not giving a Fuck – Mark Manson.

The Sublet Art of not giving a Fuck

This is part self-help book, but mostly a memoir about how he overcame his psychic difficulties in growing up. Manson…

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Confidentiality

Epic Psychotherapy is bound to assure and maintain your confidentiality under the codes of APHRA (Australian Practitioner Health Regulation Agency) and PACFA (Psychotherapist and Counsellors Federation of Australia).

The only exception to this is if you or someone else is at imminent risk of harm; or if there is a risk of a child being harmed (I am legally bound as a mandatory reporter regarding child safety). In the first instance, I will explain my concerns to you and why I am thinking you are an imminent risk. I will usually encourage you to seek help if I am unable to support the imminent safety of you or others. I will advise you of who I am contacting and why I believe you are at imminent risk before I do so unless circumstances prevent this.