Change will be therapy

Published: 1 August 2010
By: Karl Brien

End of an era: Dr Paul McQuillan after 11-and-a-half years as administrative services director at Brisbane Catholic Education

LOGOTHERAPY. You may not have heard of it yet, but you soon will if Dr Paul McQuillan has his way.

After 11-and-a-half years as administrative services director at Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE), Paul said it was time to move on and pursue his interest in logotherapy, which literally translated means "therapy through meaning".

His aim is to build an awareness of the philosophy of life and therapeutic method in Australia.

Developed by Viktor Frankl, logotherapy, is regarded as the "third Viennese school of psychotherapy" after Frued's psychoanalysis and Adler's individual psychology.

Paul, who practises logotherapy, both in life and as a therapist himself, said logotherapists believe that life had meaning under all circumstances and that "our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning and purpose in our lives".

"Each of us has the freedom to find that meaning in what we do and what we experience and, when necessary, in the stand we take when faced with situations that are simply unchangeable," he said.

"The human being is seen in logotherapy as a totality, comprised of body, mind and spirit and it is the defiant power of the human spirit that is able to overcome even the most difficult circumstances."

Paul has worked with Spiritus Care Services as a counsellor for some time and plans to increase his hours with them.

As a counsellor he works with couples and individuals on their relationships and prefers to take the logotherapeutic approach wherever possible.

Paul also plans to establish a private practice that will provide a base from which both to practise logotherapy and to teach it.

However, Paul is not breaking the connection to BCE.

He will take on a new role as the organisation's co-ordinator of research, taking on responsibility for seeing through some major projects to deliver better learning outcomes for Catholic school students.

In 2009, he steered BCE through the major research project "Who's coming to school today?", which surveyed all students in Years 3, 6, 9 and 12 across Brisbane archdiocesan schools, their parents and all staff members.

With more than 28,000 individual survey responses, it was a major work and Paul will spend time doing further analysis of the data set.

He said he hoped school communities would see the value in continuing this research on a cyclical basis.
As research co-ordinator Paul said he also saw opportunities to work alongside universities to better define the types of information and projects in which BCE was interested.

He said universities often approached BCE with students doing post-graduate studies to undertake research in groups at schools.

"There will also be the need to continue to broker research that the organisation wishes to undertake by working closely with universities," he said.

Paul began his long association with Catholic education in 1968 as a Marist Brother teaching at St Gregory's College, Campbelltown, south-west of Sydney.

At just 19 years of age he was teaching students in Form 5 who were almost his own age.

From Sydney he moved to Cairns in far north Queensland before a move back to Sydney and a teaching post at St Patrick's Demonstration High at Dundas.

As a 20-something "demonstration teacher", he remembers the Teachers' College, the beginning of what was to become Australian Catholic University (ACU), approached the school with a request to provide videotaped classroom lessons that had "failed".

"Apparently, those who had begun the instruction of a new Catholic teaching workforce, including significant numbers of lay teachers in those mid-'70s times, had enough instances of lessons that were judged to have succeeded," he said.

"The staff was somewhat non-plussed as to how one would possibly plan a lesson to 'fail'.

"They did not make the video!"

With a move to Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane came 10 "very satisfying" years for Paul and he still keeps in touch with many of his ex-students from that time.

Following a number of principalships in Catholic schools, including at Burdekin Catholic High School, Ayr; McCarthy Catholic College, Tamworth; and St Luke's College, Karratha, Western Australia, Paul made the move into administrative positions with Catholic Education in Darwin as assistant director for resources and planning.

"They were three wonderful years there and I particularly treasure working with traditional Aboriginal people in a number of remote communities around the Northern Territory," he said.

In 1999, he returned to Brisbane in the role of director of administrative services at BCE.

He relates that the move to Brisbane was unplanned as he only applied for the position as director by email on the last day for applications and wondered if anyone would be interested.

They were.

Paul's arrival at BCE came at the beginning of an era of expansion for Catholic education in south-east Queensland.

One of his first assignments was working with local communities at Gaven and Jimboomba to establish the first ecumenical schools in Australia.

These schools, while under the administration of Catholic Education, also had ongoing participation from other local faith communities and their pastors.

To his delight they have developed into the vibrant communities of Jubilee Primary School and Emmaus College since their foundations in 2001 and 2002.

The subsequent years witnessed the establishment of a further 10 new schools in the archdiocese and the purchase land valued at more than $40 million in total, much of it earmarked for future school development.

Paul regards the establishment of the Catholic Futures Fund, a fund targeted towards land purchase and to which all schools in the archdiocese contribute as perhaps his major achievement.

"It will continue to provide for Catholic school development in the fastest growing area of Australia for many years to come," he said.

Paul's other responsibilities as director included the establishment of the LinCs (Linking Catholic schools) wide-area network.
This provides Internet access and communication across all schools.
BCE also has become a member of Catholic Network Australia joining the other large wide-area network providers in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia in an initiative to serve both Catholic Education and the wider Church into the future.

Paul said he was fortunate to have worked with some wonderful managers, each of them with significant expertise in their particular area of responsibility.

Administrative services encompasses finance, planning and demographics, building, information services and logistic responsibility for what are now five separate locations for administration across Brisbane archdiocese.

Until recently the directorate had also encompassed communications and marketing responsibilities.

He attributes the remarkable growth in student numbers (from 46,000 in 1999 to over 65,000 this year) in Catholic Education during his period as a director to both the new school development and the assistance the communication and marketing team have been able to provide to schools.

As he looks back Paul is reminded of that Winston Churchill quote "to improve is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often".

Although he understands he would have a lot of changes still to make for "perfection", he does affirm change brings life.

"Research, counselling and logotherapy will certainly provide plenty of challenge," he said.

But for now he intends to write a book on the outcomes of "Who's coming to school today?" to be published next year.

"It is only my fourth attempt at a book, but one never knows where it might lead."