About Evelyn M. Field, OAM FAPS

Email: efield@bullying.com.au

‘People who need people are the luckiest people in the world!’ is part of a song by Barbra Streisand. However, relating to all sorts of people isn’t that easy. Some don’t know how to relate to others in a sociable, caring or intimate manner. Some don’t know how to manage difficult, uncaring, abusive people.  This limits their social connectivity and social network. No wonder there are so many lonely or unhappy people!

Clearly, social and emotional resilience provide essential social survival skills for any society. Effective social skills empower people to connect and relate with confidence and deal with school or workplace bullying.

Evelyn M. Field, OAM is a practising counselling psychologist in Melbourne and a Fellow of the Australian Psychological Society. She was awarded her OAM for her initiatives for school and workplace bullying.

In addition to providing therapy/coaching in Melbourne, interstate and internationally, Evelyn provides training for schools, organizations and mental health professionals. This training incorporates her simple six-step social and emotional resilience model to empower children and adults to relate more effectively. It has been presented in New Zealand, Belgium, Spain, USA, Vietnam, Canada, Norway, Copenhagen, Wales, Italy and Israel.

As well as being ethical, evidence-based and practical, Evelyn’s presentations can also be entertaining. They range from her simple presentations for PO Cruises to keynote presentations for mental health professionals. She is one of the media spokespersons for the Australian Psychological Society and has done over 900 media interviews on a wide range of topics for radio, television and print.

Evelyn convened the Therapist Special Interest Group (SIG) part of the International Association of Workplace Bullying and Harassment (IAWBH)for 7 years. She was an active member of numerous psychological associations for many years, including the Professional Advisory Board of the National Centre Against Bullying, Victims of Crime Assistance League, (Victoria) for 5 years, and spent 20 years as a Board Member of the Mental Health Foundation of Victoria and 11 years as Honorary Secretary of the Australian Association for Mental Health and was as an Accredited Speaking Member of National Speakers Association of Australia.

Evelyn currently chairs a new group, the Australian Association for Workplace Bullying Professionals.  (AAWBP) and encourages other countries to form their own associations.

Thus, Evelyn provides a range of range professional services (refer Speaking) and products (refer Products and Services) to deal with school and workplace bullying to assist children, adolescents and adults develop their emotional and social resilience. These include:

• Bully Blocking® (2007) is still a bestselling, self-help book for kids, parents and schools and is the updated version of the best seller Bully Busting (Finch 1999). It includes her six-step social and emotional resilience model. These books have been translated into Italian, Croatian, Arabic, Korean and Czechoslovakian.
• Bully Blocking (2023) is the third and updated version of Evelyn’s widely successful, original book Bully Busting.
• Evelyn wrote a chapter on Parenting for Bullying Solutions for the National Coalition Against Bullying.
• Bully Blocking at Work (2010) and Strategies for Surviving Bullying at Work (2011) reveal her expertise as an authority on understanding and managing workplace bullying. This two-part series are published by Australian Academic Press.
• Evelyn was lead author of ‘Diagnosis and treatment – repairing injuries caused by workplace bullying’ for a Handbook of Workplace Bullying, Emotional Abuse and Harassment with Dr Pat Ferris, published by Springer with Premilla D’Cruz and Ernesto Noronha as Chief Editors (2019) (Refer Workplace Bullying Resources, this site)

She is completing a self-help therapy book for children on blocking bullies and one on social smarts for youngsters.