We are actively taught how to do so many things - how to read and write, drive a car, cook and swim, but we aren’t actively taught how to navigate our emotions or feelings. All psychological therapies have the aim of helping us regulate or navigate our feelings. Cognitive behaviour therapy says that if we [...]
What happens in your first counselling session? Life brings challenges and no one misses out on having to deal with these at some stage or another. Most times we gather up our usual strategies and get through; other times we hit a wall and just can’t seem to see through to the best options. These [...]
How can a psychologist help? Raising children is not an easy feat. One minute you will all be playing a fun family game of monopoly, and the next minute your children are leaning across the table pulling each other’s hair out, and you’re wondering who will be left with more hair on their head – [...]
As you will remember from last week’s article about EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation Reprocessing) we made up an example case about a man who was terrified of doing a job interview. We used the EMDR technique, the “Flash Technique” and reduced his anxiety levels from a 9 out of 10 to a 6 out of [...]
If you were listening to Mix 94.5 FM yesterday you might have heard about Leah's fear of balloons, and today was the reveal of how EMDR helped her overcome her fear. I was asked to help Leah overcome her fear of balloons. At the beginning she tells us that she wouldn’t be able to stay [...]
Many fears that we experience are natural and adaptive, and built in, in order to protect us. We all know that unlike birds, we weren’t naturally born to fly. Fears are a warning signal and can be useful when they give us pause to consider and protect us from accidents or danger. Our distant ancestors [...]
Life can be hard sometimes. We all have periods of our life where we feel sad, lethargic, unmotivated or experience low mood from time to time. Depression can develop into a serious mental health issue and typically includes a persistent low mood and feelings of sadness for longer than two weeks, as well as negative [...]
Too Busy for Mindfulness? That’s me. Or so I thought for quite a long time… And I rarely sit still for any length of time. It turns out that practicing mindfulness does not have to be time consuming…or rigid or boring. It can be as simple as actively paying attention as you go about your [...]
Fear is a natural human emotion, and like any emotion knowing how to approach the feeling is key. Steps to preparing for a stressful situation : When you find yourself feeling an emotion of a high intensity, or if you are pushing yourself to confront a situation that you expect to find stressful, it is [...]
Recently, Lisa Irving, Clinical Psychologist was asked to be the speaker for an event for the Australian Rehab Providers Association on the topic of Motivational Interviewing. (She aimed to keep people interested and get a few laughs and has been joking since that she might become a comedian yet!) Lisa shared her experiences and knowledge [...]
