Meet the Team
We believe that true support requires more than just clinical knowledge. We treat lived experience as expertise. It is a cornerstone of our approach—it balances and enriches professional credentials, and it is what helps men feel understood.
Every member of our team brings a combination of formal training and a profound personal journey. We are here to walk alongside you, not to fix you.
Take your time to read through our profiles. If you are seeking one-on-one mentoring, we encourage you to choose a facilitator whose journey and approach resonate with your own.
Kosta Michalopoulos
Founder
Registered Nurse, Root Cause Therapist, Health Promotion Practitioner
With over two decades of experience in healthcare across both Greece and Australia, I have dedicated my career to supporting individuals through complex physical, emotional, and psychosocial challenges. My journey began with a Diploma in Nursing and service in the medical corps in Greece, which provided a foundational understanding of care and discipline. After moving to Australia in 2001, I built a career as a Registered Nurse and care coordinator, working extensively in community health. For more than 13 years, I had the honor of working with some of our community's most vulnerable people, which profoundly shaped my understanding of holistic, trauma-informed care.
My professional path is deeply connected with my own lived experience. I am not just a practitioner; I am a man who has navigated the depths of grief, divorce, and my own struggles with addiction to alcohol, cigarettes, and online gaming. I know what it's like to feel disconnected and to search for a way back to yourself. I have also had my own sense of safety profoundly challenged, and that experience has created in me an unbreakable commitment to creating spaces where every man is and feels safe. This journey, with all its hardships, has been my greatest teacher, fostering a resilience and self-awareness that clinical training alone cannot provide.
It is this combination of professional expertise and personal history that is the foundation of The Men Spirit. I am currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Health Promotion to further ground this work in evidence-based practice, with a focus on how safe, relational spaces can build resilience and a sense of belonging for men.
My mission is to create spaces where men can be their full selves, without judgment. It's about moving beyond the restrictive scripts of masculinity and building the skills for genuine connection — to ourselves and to each other. This work is my purpose. It is my way of giving back, ensuring other men have the support I once needed.
Shane Brabazon
Facilitation and Community Lead
Clinical Hypnotherapist
Shane Brabazon is a counsellor with more than 30 years’ experience working with individuals and families through community services and private practice. His work is grounded not only in professional training but in his own ongoing journey of personal growth and self-understanding.
Shane holds a Graduate Certificate in Counselling and a Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy and Counselling, and has undertaken further training in Critical Incident Trauma Debriefing, Internal Family Systems, and Conflict Resolution and Family Mediation.
Like many men, Shane has faced his own mental health struggles over the years. Rather than turning away from those challenges, he has used them as a path toward deeper self-reflection and healing. This has led him into continued personal development work, including exploring the often unseen parts of ourselves — the underlying beliefs, wounds, and shadow aspects that shape how we live, relate, and show up in the world.
Shane creates spaces where men can speak honestly, support one another, and reconnect with a deeper sense of meaning, responsibility, and inner strength. He believes that when men are given the opportunity to be real about their struggles and their growth, something powerful happens — not just for the individual, but for families and communities as well.
His belief is that every man carries both wounds and wisdom, and that real strength comes from the courage to face both.