Prepared by Robyn Farmer, Wife of Alan Farmer.
Alan was the Recorder of the Victorian Branch of the British Psychological Society in 1962 and was one of the initiators, foundation and inaugural members of the AUSTRALIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY (APS). He was Inaugural Secretary of the Victorian Branch of the APS and a signatory 
to the Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association incorporating the Society as a Public Company on 25th of July 1966 under the Companies Act, 1961, New South Wales.
He continued to contribute to the APS on various Victorian and Australian Committees of the Society for many years, including the Ethics Committee, the Membership Committee, and the Working Party on Special Education. He was the secretary of the Victorian branch, and in 1964 he was working to produce a report for the Victorian State Government to ban Scientology in Victoria, which the Victorian government enacted. The ban was later overturned by Justice Kirby in the High Court of Australia when Scientology was recognised as a religion for the purposes of collecting payroll tax for the government. He also served for some years as an elected member representative of Educational and Developmental Psychology on the APS Central Council (now called the Board) of the APS in the 1970’s.
In 1978 the Education Department of Victoria awarded Alan a travelling scholarship to research the development and ractice of educational psychology in Europe and America. Alan had initiated the use of community resources to support at risk disadvantaged children in schools in Victoria. This work with his staff did a lot to prevent and ameliorate disadvantage and was effective and highly regarded. He found that no-where he visited nationally or internationally was using these community resources, so was able to share his knowledge and skills.
While working in the Education Department as an educational psychologist with the Psychology and Guidance Branch, he initiated and encouraged much research, often in conjunction with Melbourne University into numerous areas to assist students, parents and teachers. He initiated a specialised research and treatment centre for children who were unable to read, and worked towards the integration of the disabled and disadvantaged students into regular schools and classes, always using educational and psychological assessment to safeguard the needs of the individual student. Alan was also appointed by the State Government Working Party Investigation into Corporal Punishment. This resulted in the publication of the book “Positive School Discipline” which he co-authored with his staff. The book was used throughout Victorian schools, and a second printing was required due to its popularity. Other publications that were developed by Alan and his staff included booklets for the training of educational psychologists and to assist parents in preparing their children to be ready for the start of school.
After his retirement from the Education Department Alan continued working in private practice, becoming a member of the APS Division of Independently Practising Psychologists in 1995, having completed an additional qualification in Clinical Hypnosis to add to his counselling skills. Alan had a broad range of interests and an enormous zest for life. He loved music, was a choir boy in St Paul’s Cathedral and enjoyed learning and playing a variety of instruments including saxophone, trumpet and later guitar with friends and his children. He was an all round sportsman, and an enthusiastic outback camper and traveller. He loved working with wood and leather and building (even a boat in the lounge room) and a hut at Jamieson. Alan was a pilot of light aircraft and flew around outback Australia, taking his wife and two friends with him.
He was elected a Fellow of the APS in 2012 after 50 years of membership. Alan remained a member of the Membership Committee for many years until his retirement from the Education Department in 1987. Alan was a loving husband of Robyn and proud and loving father of their three children, Kerstin, Roy and Abigail.
Alan continued as a life member of the APS until his death in June 2023.