The son of Ainslie Meares (q.v.), Russell Meares pursued similar creative and professional interests as his father. An international leader in the field of psychotherapy, Meares studied medicine in Melbourne in the late 1950s. He then trained in psychiatry at the Maudsley and Bethlem Royal Hospital in London, working in an inpatient unit dealing with severe personality disorders. This led him to develop a model of psychotherapy centred on the psychology of the self.
Meares practised medicine and psychiatry in Melbourne, London and Sydney. From 2003, he was Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, University of Sydney, and Director, Mental Health Sciences Centre, Westmead Hospital. Meares was leading figure in the formation of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychotherapy as well as its foundation president. He wrote extensively on the idea of 'intimate conversation' with the self. His works in this latter field include The Pursuit of Intimacy (1977), The Metaphor of Play (1992) and Intimacy and Alienation (2000). He also edited The Self in Conversation (2002).
