Dr Martin Hemsley

Martin (also called ‘Sananda’) joined the ANZPOP faculty team in 2020. He has a deep interest in spiritual emergence, healing, shamanism and dreamwork, which he brings into his private therapy practice, as well as his teaching.

Martin is an author, therapist, supervisor and educator with extensive knowledge in health and healing, having worked for many years as a clinician and academic in nursing. Prior to moving fully into private practice in 2020, he worked for ten years in mental health crisis work.

He is deeply passionate about Process Work as it meets his need for personal and professional growth and enriches his life on all levels – practical, spiritual and emotional. He has been practicing as a PW therapist for several years, based in the Byron Shire in Northern NSW (and online). As well as teaching in the ANZPOP Diploma training program, Sananda teaches Dreamwork online with Penny Watson, another process worker.

Before the pandemic, he taught PW group work and dream work in Byron Bay Australia with another Process Work Diplomate, Vicki Henricks, through their local organisation, Northern Rivers Process Work. Martin and Vicki also worked in providing conflict and community building facilitation to family and community groups in the Byron area.

Sananda is a past graduate of the ANZPOP Process Work Diploma training program.

Martin’s book ‘Here There be Soul-Eaters: Sacred Journeys of Nurse Healers’ (pub 2019), is based on his nursing PhD ‘Walking Two Worlds’, and explores, from a Process Work perspective, the deep, extraordinary and confounding experiences of spiritual healers, tracing their blessings and challenges upon and over the edges between ordinary reality and the multiple realities beyond. This book was inspired and provoked by his own experiences, and he remains deeply committed to working with people on these big edges.

‘Here There be Soul-Eaters’ can be sourced from online bookshops.

As well as his book, Martin has published several articles in refereed journals on nurse healers, and also on the importance of housing for people living with mental illness:

Hemsley M. 2019. Here There be Soul-Eaters: Sacred Journeys of Nurse Healers. Canberra, Eldership Academy Press (http://www.eldershipacademy.org/here-there-be-soul-eaters/).

Hemsley M. & Glass N. 2006. Sacred Journeys of Nurse Healers. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 24(4):256-268.

Hemsley M. Glass N., &. Watson J. 2006. Taking the Eagle’s View: Using Watson’s Conceptual Model to Investigate the Extraordinary and Transformative Experiences of Nurse Healers. Holistic Nursing Practice, 20(2):85–94.

Hemsley M. & Glass N., 2002. Story Telling and Nurse Healers: Energetics of the Not Ordinarily Encountered. Sacred Space, 3(2): 4-13.

Hemsley M. & Glass N. 1999. “Super” Presencing: Nurse Healers’ Stories of Healing. Australian Journal of Holistic Nursing, 6(1): 25-31.

Hemsley M. & Glass N. 1999. Nurse Healers: Exploring their Lived Experience as Nurses. Australian Journal of Holistic Nursing, 6(2): 28-34.

Browne G. & Hemsley M. 2010. Consumer participation in housing: Reflections on consumer preferences. Australasian Psychiatry.18(6) p579-583.

Browne G. & Hemsley M. 2010. Housing and living with a mental illness: Exploring carer’s views. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 19(1) 22-30.

Browne G. & Hemsley M. 2008. Consumer participation in mental health in Australia: What progress is being made? Australasian Psychiatry, 16(6), 446–449.

Browne G., Hemsley M. & St. John W. 2008.Consumer perspectives on recovery: A focus on housing following discharge from hospital. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 17(6), 402–409.

Browne G. Hemsley M. & St. John W. 2006. Housing support for people living with a mental illness. Australian Nursing Journal, 14(4), 32.