Sometimes life can feel like a crisis. A crisis can present in many different forms. It can present itself in the form of the death of a loved one, to losing a job, to losing a relationship, losing a friendship, losing money, or even just feeling like you’ve failed at something. When we are hit by a crisis, we can be hit by emotions so strongly, that sometimes we go numb. Our mind and body protect us from the emotional storm that is raging within. Sometimes, we’re not numb to this, we feel every bit of it, and it feels so strong that we feel like we need to lash out and hurt others, or we run away and hide. When this is happening we need to ask ourselves how a reaction is going to help us. Often a reaction, by either avoiding, hurting ourselves, or hurting others makes us feel guilty and ashamed, which does not help the situation. So when life gets overwhelming, what do we do? The following may help.…

It is not uncommon for there to be a waiting time between calling to book your first appointment with a mental health practitioner and your first appointment. But now because of COVID, wait times for psychologists are very long. This can leave you feeling like you’re in limbo and can be an anxious and uncertain time. If you’re reading this and you have an appointment that you’re waiting for, here are some ways that you can take care of yourself while you’re waiting.

There is no doubt that sleep is an essential component of our health and wellbeing routine. The evidence is very clear that getting good sleep contributes to better performance at work or when studying and better health overall. For this reason, when we’re not sleeping well, we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to ‘fix’ the problem for fear of the ramifications. In our blog on sleep in July 2018 “How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep” Dr Jodie Thomas stepped us through several highly effective health behaviours to support good sleep and if you haven’t read it, it would be a great post to return to as it is rich in information. In this blog post we’re extending the conversation on sleep by exploring sleep and insomnia through the lens of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and the work of Dr Guy Meadows, sleep physiologist, author of “The Sleep Book” and co-founder of “The Sleep School”.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterised by the presence of obsessions and associated compulsions. Obsessions can be described as recurrent, intrusive and unwanted thoughts, images or impulses, whereas compulsions are characterised as repeated behaviours or mental actions performed in response to obsessions to reduce distress. There are many types of obsessional thoughts that can present in people with OCD. Some examples of these include thoughts about harming someone else, thoughts about germs, thoughts about the meaning of life, losing things, forgetting things, being worried that something bad might happen, worries about your health, thoughts about things not being or feeling “right”, thoughts about your sexuality or other personally unacceptable thoughts.

As Psychologists we keep talking about self-monitoring and we often use reflective questions. Why? What do we even mean by that? Why is it important?

I think just about everyone has heard of an IQ test or the idea of IQ – that is our Intellectual Quotient or, the thing that measures how ‘smart you are’. I remember several years ago there was a ‘play along at home’ quiz show on TV that would help you estimate your IQ. In truth, understanding intelligence is not that simple. Cognition, learning and performance are complicated components of an individual’s psychology and assessing and making meaning of results is a highly scientific process. And, when explored in the context of clinical, academic or performance dilemmas, the results can be extremely meaningful and can lead to helpful clinical, educational and occupational interventions.