Rate My Professor David Roland

Dr David Roland is an Adjunct Lecturer in the Faculty of Health at Southern Cross University. He holds a BSc (Hons) from the University of Sydney and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Wollongong, where his research focused on performance anxiety in musicians, culminating in his self-help book The Confident Performer (NewSouth, 1998). For more than twenty years, he worked as a clinical and forensic psychologist, treating and assessing clients from children to adults at the Children’s Court Clinic and the Criminal Court. Roland is an Honorary Associate with the University Centre for Rural Health at the University of Sydney, a founding member of Compassionate Mind Australia, and a certified forest bathing guide with Forest Therapy Hub, having completed training between 2022 and 2023. He has trained in neuropsychological assessment and studied interpersonal neurobiology online with Professor Daniel Siegel. Additionally, he served as an advisor to the Young Stroke Project with the National Stroke Foundation and currently acts as consultant psychologist for Renal Services NNSWLHD.

Roland leads the nature-based compassion-focused group intervention in the Healing Climate-Related Trauma (HEART) clinical trial at Southern Cross University, part of a $3.8 million MRFF-funded stepped care model for disaster-related PTSD led by Professor James Bennett-Levy, where he trains guides and develops protocols. His research specializations include post-traumatic growth, neuroplasticity, compassion, psychological resilience to natural disasters, and the mental health benefits of nature connection. Key publications include How I Rescued My Brain: A Psychologist’s Remarkable Recovery from Stroke and Trauma (Scribe Publications), chronicling his personal rehabilitation through neuroplasticity, psychology, and social support, and The Power of Suffering: Growing Through Life Crises (Simon & Schuster), featuring stories of individuals achieving growth amid adversity. He contributed to Best Australian Science Writing 2015 and received the Stroke Foundation’s Creative Award in 2015. Roland delivers workshops on writing trauma narratives for Resilience NSW and Writers NSW, maintains a YouTube channel 'Compassion in Action,' and has featured on ABC Radio National’s Big Ideas program, influencing public discourse on mental health, suffering, and recovery.