ACA Hunter Chapter - October 2026

The Hunter Chapter meets every second month

Agenda: Violence, Peace and the Counselling Room.
Presented by Matthew Coxhill.

Not all distress starts inside the client. Drawing on Johan Galtung's peace studies framework, this session gives counsellors an additional diagnostic lens: direct, structural, and cultural violence as three distinct sources of harm, each easy to miss when working from a purely individual model. We'll examine the crucial difference between negative peace (the absence of harm) and positive peace (the presence of justice, equity, and agency), and what each implies for treatment goals. The framework is tested against real cases from practice, showing where it changes clinical formulation and where its limits lie.

The session then moves to a separate but linked segment on the psychological impacts of avian influenza (H5N1) on birdwatchers, wildlife carers, field workers and the general public - an emerging but increasingly recognised form of grief, examined in its own right.

Matthew Coxhill is a counsellor and mediator helping people navigate the emotional impact of climate change and ecological grief. His background has taken him through roles in fish farming, multinational corporations, small business, and academia, in Australia and overseas, underpinned by a deep spiritual connection to nature and the world's wilder places. He holds a Diploma of Counselling, a Bachelor of Science, and a Master's in Peace and Conflict Studies, and he teaches at the University of Newcastle.