dr. Amar Dhall
His commitment to his clients empowers them to see more clearly and make wiser choices. His philosophy can be summed up by the phrase “know thyself.”
A powerful thinker with a compassionate heart, Amar weaves together robust ideas across multiple disciplines.
He’s a passionate educator who blends science, spirit, and humour into a unique and holistic neuro-somatic approach that works both top-downward (e.g. working on thoughts, understanding and awareness to change felt state) and also bottom-upward (e.g. refining body-based and nervous system awareness to transform thoughts and beliefs). He uses his neuro-somatic approach to create transformative workshops and courses.
Amar provides many services:
Individual, team and organisational coaching and facilitation.
Psychoeducation and emotional intelligence training.
Self-development and leadership programs for open-minded people.
Bespoke consulting and research to co-create effective solutions to complex problems of any kind.
He brings heart, authenticity, and challenge to create safe spaces for people to explore their edges and supports the blossoming of their potential. Amar’s ability to sculpt profound experiential learning encounters that serve the needs of his personal and professional clients is second to none – provocative, inspiring, and playful.
The traditional approach in education is to cultivate oneself top-down (that is, the focus of schools and universities is to develop our brains) – Amar integrates a bottom-up approach, drawn from his training in somatic psychotherapy. The result for his clients is a new insightful holistic integration, and the fresh perspectives it brings leads to a newly felt freedom.
Amar is currently authoring his first book.
Amar’s formidable capacity to understand recondite information was recognised with the completion of a PhD where he deployed cutting-edge research in holistic quantum mechanics and human consciousness to formulate a novel paradigm of law. The depth and breadth of his expertise and critical thinking have enlivened his capacity for his research to be published in diverse fields including psychotherapy, international human rights law and shamanism. By virtue of his polymathic nature, he is able to formulate original insights in areas that others have ‘done to death’. From this space, he synthesises complex and abstruse ideas into easily digestible, bite-sized pieces making them relatable for people from all sorts of backgrounds.
Also voted the 7th best chill-out DJ in the world and 5th best in 2018 in the psybient.org annual poll in 2017 and collaborator in musical adventures, Amar is a loving and present man, living close to Canberra, Australia. He continues to deepen his own self-knowledge and supports the emerging genius of those around him.
Amar’s Experience
Amar is a polymath and entrepreneur passionately supporting the blossoming of human potential. He is a powerfully unique thinker with a voracious appetite for life, love and learning. Amar has been fierce in his commitment to challenge himself and live his most meaningful life from the deepest authenticity he could touch in himself. His career and interests took various twists and turns over the years, each step developing some essential aspect of his character which has led him inexorably to embody the refined perspective from which he now operates.
From his doctorate exploring the intersection of law, human consciousness and quantum mechanics and other published works, to being ranked as one of the top-ten chill out DJs in the world, Amar defies categorisation into one vocation, profession or paradigm and simply shows up with all of himself. Whether it is one-on-one trauma work or emotional intelligence training in a corporate context, he always embodies deep care for his clients and a willingness to gently provoke people with their known but unacknowledged truth.
Below are some of his professional experiences so you can get a sense of Amar’s flavour.
2008
After graduating from Law with honours, Amar chose to develop his honour thesis into a PhD. At the same time, he was invited to join the faculty in The School of Law and Justice at the University of Canberra as an academic, a position Amar held for almost a decade. It was in this position that he really began to understand that the greatest obstacle to people’s transformation through learning is the way life experiences harden us to the experience of truly dancing with the world of new ideas and fresh perspectives.
Amar believes powerfully in the concept espoused by German hermeneutic thinker, Hans Georg Gadamer; learning is not something we ‘do’, it’s an expansion of who we are. It’s about embodying the unique brilliance we each possess by freeing our essential nature from the limiting beliefs and disconnects we picked up by virtue of being human. He’s been focussed on supporting the blossoming of human potential ever since.
2014
Amar joined the community organisation, the Mankind Project (MKP). The MKP is a non-religious global network of non-profit organisations that conducts challenging and highly rewarding programs for men at every stage of their lives. The MKP has a presence in approximately 25-countries and runs about 1,000 men’s circles serving close to 10,000 men each week. The flagship program, a weekend retreat called the New Warrior Training Adventure has been attended by over 80,000 men of all races, orientations, and abilities.
2015
Amar received his PhD, and reflecting his passionate and deeply caring approach to his students’ evolution, Amar was awarded The Dean’s Choice Award for Innovation and Excellence in Education.
With his PhD accomplished, and now well aware of the narrow focus of tertiary education on neocortical learning, the next chapter required Amar to leave his familiar professional territory as he became intrigued by the question: “how can I best serve people to live their best lives possible?”
2016
After a short stint in legal practice Amar was offered partnership in a small firm. Here he learned the difference between “wanting something” and “wanting to want something”. Partnership in a law firm was something that Amar wanted to want, but he didn’t actually want it. It was at the suggestion of one of his mentors that he began postgraduate training as a psychotherapist.
Amar was empanelled on the Safety Resolution Council, an Australian body tasked with ensuring the spiritual, psychological and physical safety of members who attend any event, training, circle, or workshop run by the MKP in Australia, a position he holds today.
2018
Amar began practicing as a registered psychotherapist, counsellor and coach and was invited to become one of two international headmen for the Mankind Project, serving in an international leadership role which included a seat on the MKP-International Board.
2019
Amar began his specialisation in trauma by beginning his study of the modality Somatic Experiencing. He also became a co-founder of Primal Intelligence, a company that delivers emotionally intelligent workshops, programs, and professional development. Primal Intelligence has actively served industries as diverse as Food and Beverage, Aviation, Government, and the Community Sector. Currently, Primal Intelligence is running leadership development programs for Indigenous youth in the Mallee district of Victoria. This program has positively transformed the local community from the grassroots up, and from the top down, working also with the Department of Health and Human Services staff in Victoria, Australia.
2020
Amar deepened his trauma specialisation by completing the first year of training as a polyvagal informed therapist with Deb Dana and continued his training in Somatic Experiencing. During the year of lockdown Amar continued researching and developing new courses.
2021
Amar established and became the Centre Director for The Canberra Trauma and Well-Being Centre along with his partner, Sandy Farac based in Woden in the ACT. In addition he became a partner in the USA-based company, The Lawyer’s Centre for Performance and Wellbeing LLC, and published a chapter in a book published by the American Bar Association on Lawyers and Trauma. Amar also reached the level of “clinical psychotherapist” with PACFA (Psychotherapists and Counsellors Federation of Australia).
He also attended some training run by Mind Medicine Australia exploring the role of MDMA and other psychedelics in the treatment of trauma. His training in Somatic Experiencing and Deb Dana’s Polyvagal Informed Therapy also continued. Amar completed a comprehensive course in interpersonal neurobiology run by Dr Daniel Seigel.
“Amar Dhall is intelligent, insightful, compassionate and articulate. Amar possesses great communication skills and has a remarkable way of recognising underlying issues hidden in simple conversation, getting to the core and bringing them to the surface. He is a gifted psychotherapist. Thank you Amar.”