About

Dr Kieran Forster is an established Australian visual artist and a consultant psychiatrist (with 24 years involvement in the practice of medicine) based in Brisbane. He has had many solo art exhibitions, the most recent being February 2023.

His work has appeared in many art journals and in an international volume “Curatorial” * ( for his juxtaposition of abstract art with psychodynamic and philosophical themes).

He is also an active portrait painter as well as an advocate for the rediscovery of reading as meditation.

Many of his recent portraits on this site are of newly discovered writers, whose brilliant work has yet to truly hit the public mind. He has also done portraits of podcasters, friends, psychiatrists and whomever.

He believes psychodynamic psychotherapy should be the essential core focus of modern psychiatry. He believes therapy is essentially the pursuit of meaning and therefore an ontological activity that crosses over into the creative process, also an ontological activity or a manifestation / pursuit of meaning. Psychotherapy is based on a reciprocal relationship of trust and collaboration.

This depressogenic era (characterised by widespread cynicism, distrust in public institutions and professions, disinterest in deep relationships, superficial materialism /ever-present narcissism and high rates of social flux) is in desperate need of clinicians willing to discuss not just how to “get better”, but how to self-actualise and prosper. This is the context of both his art and psychiatric practice.

“My art practice and my practice as a private psychiatrist of course have some commonalities. As a psychiatrist, my practice is psychotherapy-focused and aims at helping people achieve psychological wellness, find personal fulfilment and self-actualisation in their life as a whole. Real equilibrium.

I have worked across many fields of psychiatry : forensic psychiatry, combat PTSD, personality disorders specifically Borderline and Narcissistic PD, biological psychiatry, severe mood and anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and workplace injury. In the last decade or so, I have focused on Adult ADHD / ADD and ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder aka Asperger’s Disorder)…in other words, neurodivergent people who have realised or suspected this missing explanatory link in their personal narrative.

I work mainly with people with Adult ADD and / or ASD, although I have a significant part of my practice aimed at providing support to new members of the medical profession (medical students, residents and registrars especially those with neurodivergence). This has developed to include many clients from non-medical professional hierarchies that have also failed to eliminate toxic workplaces based on unrestrained narcissistic group dynamics. Bad workplace means you get sick!

My art work itself provides one real and tangible example of the essential link between medicine and the humanities. My form of psychodynamic psychotherapy relies on an eclectic mix of mainstream approaches (see Gabbard Psychodynamic Psychotherapy) as well as forms of therapy explicitly linked with the humanities (see Yalom Existential Psychotherapy). The primary point here is that both my artwork and my psychiatry work are separate but related meaning-based, meaning-creating endeavours. For more information about my psychiatric practice, see www.drkieranforster.com.au

this is my most recent website: www.kieranforster.art