Focused Psychological Strategies Training and webinars, please contact admin@aspm.org.au
Acting President, Australian Society of Psychological Medicine
Qualifications: B.Med · Grad Cert HPE · MSc · MA MEL · FRACGP
Dr Benj Tarsh is an Australian-based General Practitioner who relocated from the UK to undertake medical training, and has since dedicated his career to delivering empathic, patient-centred Whole Person Care.
Since then I have worked in General Practice across regional Victoria and Melbourne, and for the past three and a half years I have worked exclusively in drug, alcohol and addiction medicine, integrating General Practice medical care with trauma-informed psychotherapy in a psychotherapeutic inpatient environment.
I currently serve as Medical Director of Malvern Private Hospital in Victoria — a specialist dual-diagnosis drug, alcohol and addiction facility offering a structured 28-day abstinence-based recovery program built on an intensive daily therapeutic schedule of both group and individual psychodynamic and psychoeducational therapy, supported by a specialist multidisciplinary team. Alongside this, I see patients privately as a psychodynamic psychotherapist, mostly working with The Conversational Model developed by Dr Robert Hobson and Professor Russell Meares, a way of being with people that still resonates with me as much today as when I first came across it.
Though my work has become sub-specialised, it has stayed wonderfully diverse, and if there’s a thread running through it, it’s looking after people living with mental illness, addiction, or marginalisation for all sorts of reasons. Over the years I’ve found myself drawn to:
The last three and a half years, working solely in addiction medicine and rehabilitation, have felt like a natural coming-together of everything that has mattered to me in medicine.
I find joy and relaxation in learning music, singing, appreciating the creative beauty of art, reading, swimming, golf, baking sourdough bread, and most of all quality time with my partner, family and friends.
I’m one of those people who reads several books at once, picking whichever fits my mood. Right now I’m reading or rereading:
As I have got to know the people in ASPM, I have felt something I didn’t fully expect: a real sense of belonging and kinship. ASPM has come to feel like an extended family — people drawn together not to compete, but to learn from one another, share hard-won wisdom, and grow, not just for ourselves but for the patients we all see every day.
With that sense of belonging comes a wish to give back. I want to help ASPM look after our family of current and future members, share what I’ve learned, and see the Society grow into the premier home for Whole Person Care practitioners.
There’s an idea I keep coming back to: if we influence one doctor, we might touch many lives. If we influence more doctors, we begin to change the profession. That possibility is what gets me up in the morning.
Teaching has been part of who I am since my earliest days in medicine, and I’ve taken the time to gain higher qualifications in medical education because I wanted to do it well. I get genuine joy from teaching students and registrars — particularly clinical skills, ethics and a little medical law along the way.
I think ASPM’s future depends on how well we meet the needs of our members, so my interests genuinely span every part of the Society’s work: Education, Collegiate Connection and Political Advocacy. My commitment is simple — to work for, and on behalf of, every member, the ones here now and the ones still to come.