About Our Trainers

Dr. Roby Abeles (left) and Salene Souza (right) are Certified Brainspotting Practitioners, Brainspotting International Trainers, and the co-founders of Brainspotting Australia Pacific.

They are the co-presenters of Brainspotting (BSP) Trainings Phases 1 & 2 in the Australia Pacific region. Both Roby & Salene have been personally trained by Dr. David Grand, the developer of Brainspotting to deliver his trademarked training programs.

Dr Roby Abeles has been a trauma and addiction therapist for over 32 years. She is also a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, or SEP. Her clients come from all over Australia and overseas.

Dr. Roby Abeles on the Experts Panel at the ACF International Trauma Conference in Melbourne, August, 2018. Also on stage are Peter Fonagy, Cathy Malchiodi, Gabor Mate´, Kim Golding, Bessel van der Kolk, Marilyn Devallier and Ed Tronick.

Roby began using Brainspotting in 2004, after participating in the second BSP training David Grand ever presented, which was in Chicago, USA. She attended this training after being very impressed after having a BSP session with David in September that year, at an International EMDR Conference in Montreal, Canada.

Five years later, in December, 2009, Roby brought David Grand to teach the very first BSP Phases 1 & 2 in Sydney to a small group of enthused Australian EMDR therapists. It was at this time that David introduced Roby to Salene Souza, which has resulted in a wonderful professional partnership and personal friendship.

David had first met Salene Souza in 2007, when she attended his Phase 1 and 2 BSP trainings in Brazil.

Salene Souza is a parenting coach and child therapist.

In March of 2013, Roby and Salene became International BSP trainers, personally invited and trained by BSP developer Dr. David Grand.

Salene has developed creative ways to use BSP with children and families and has presented her work in Australia, and at the 1st International Brainspotting Conference in Buzios, Brazil, March, 2016, and all over Brazil since then.

Roby Abeles has specialised in using BSP to resolve addiction relapse and in the benefits of using Narrative Therapy with Brainspotting, and presented her work at the 1st International Brainspotting Conference in Buzios, Brazil, in March, 2016.

She has continued to train other Brainspotting therapists in this work in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia and:

• USA  (Atlanta, GA 2017, Boulder, CO 2018 and Los Angeles, CA in 2019)
• Vienna, Austria (2018)
• London, UK (2018)
• Ljubljana, Slovenia (2019)
• Barcelona, Spain (2019)

Planned for 2020

• Ottawa, Canada
• Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Milan, Italy
• Singapore, Singapore