School of Psychology

Ms Robyn Bett

Lecturer

BA (Hons) M.App Psych (Murdoch University)

PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION & ACTIVITIES:
Robyn has been a member of the Perth Playback Theatre company for twenty years and is currently a Board Member of the International Playback Theatre Network.  This form of community story telling theatre has given her the opportunity to engage with the stories of people within a range of community settings and institutions including prisons, secondary schools, hospitals and a range of NGO’s.  Robyn currently teaches at Murdoch University in the Counselling Programmes in the School of Psychology. For the past 13 years she has been teaching in the Art Therapy Programme in the School of Communications and Contemporary Arts at Edith Cowan University, and from 2002 had a leading role in the creation of the first Australian Drama Therapy Programme there.  . 

Robyn’s education has included studying theatre at the WA Academy of Performing Arts and obtaining a Masters of Applied Psychology at Murdoch University.  She has also studied Drama Therapy at New York University, as a recipient of a Rotary Scholarship, and completed certificates in Group Work Leadership and Feldenkrais Technique.

Since 1991 Robyn has worked as a storyteller, telling folk tales and fairy tales to hundreds of children in Western Australia.  In the mid nineties Robyn directed several community development productions, one of which was filmed by Channel 28 for broadcast.  In 1997 and 1998 she worked with Buzz Dance Theatre on storytelling projects.  In 1998 Robyn was a co-recipient of a Global Fund for Women Grant to provide training and support for a small theatre company in Fiji who were working towards equal rights.  In 2001 Robyn spent two months at Danila Dilba Social and Emotional Well-Being Service in Darwin, supporting the use of the creative arts in Aboriginal mental health services.

Clinically Robyn has worked with traumatized children, children with differences, adolescents in crisis, families and people living with mental illness and addiction issues.  Her research interests include the use of playback theatre as a support service for volunteer crisis workers, links between communication difficulties and social/emotional challenges, the role of drama therapy in helping people recover from trauma, and the ways in which arts practices assist the development of emotional intelligence.  She combines her teaching roles with performance, and working as a children’s counsellor at Safecare Inc. 

TEACHING:
Introduction to Counselling, Counselling: Children, Couples and Families, Group and Individual Supervision in Counselling Practicum