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Clinical Mental Health

Recognising and Treating Exercise Addiction

He’s up at 5:00 a.m. every morning, slipping into jogging shorts despite the single-digit temperatures, cold winds, and darkness. He pounds the pavement faithfully for 90 minutes a day, at least five days a week. He is also chronically tired and complains of frequent joint pain. He has recently been feeling like, “Why bother? Life […]

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing for Trauma

If your client was suffering from trauma, which approach would you choose to help them? In this post we explore eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing, or EMDR. Background EMDR is a trauma-focused psychological intervention created from an accelerated information-processing model. Because it also incorporates dissociation and nonverbal representation of traumas (such as visual memories), EMDR […]

Post-disaster Resilience: Who Survives Better?

In recent years, many disaster response experts and mental health researchers have switched their focus from looking exclusively at at-risk populations in the aftermath of an emergency to asking, “What are the protective factors?” “What situations, experiences, or personal traits help people to come through a traumatic incident with greater resilience?” First, let’s clear what […]

How to Overcome Anxiety

The CEO of the fast-expanding organisation looked at me, despair seeping through a veneer of confidence. With three growing children, a loving husband, and work at the top of the corporate ladder, her life ticked all the boxes. “I’m coping OK,” she confided, “but I’ve been better.” “Better” was before she came to be afflicted […]

CBT in a Nutshell

We can broadly define CBT as a combination of cognitive and behavioural therapeutic approaches used to help clients modify limiting, maladaptive thoughts and behaviours, ones that are often inconsistent with consensual reality (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). The basic premise of CBT is that troublesome emotions are difficult to change directly, so CBT targets […]

What Can Depressed Seniors Do to Alleviate their Own Depression?

As a counsellor/therapist, doctor, allied health professional (or just a caregiver) of a depressed older adult, you are undoubtedly wondering what you can do to encourage them to help themselves. The following list is a compilation of strategies and tips culled from sites specialising in caring for the depressed elderly. You may wish to discuss […]

Mindfulness Techniques: Defusion Exercises

Mindfulness (learn more about mindfulness here) interventions have been shown to be beneficial for a wide range of psychological and physical conditions such as anxiety, depression, chronic pain, personality disorders, and addictions. Controlled trials of normal populations have also demonstrated positive changes in brain function and immune response, self-awareness, perceived stress, and increase in self-compassion […]

Common Misconceptions About Suicide

The World Health Organization estimates that about million people die by suicide each year (World Health Organization, 2004). Understanding what drives people to take their own life is not easy for those who are not enmeshed in intolerable pain themselves; thus, myths and misconceptions tend to proliferate about this very final act. It is important […]

OCD vs OCPD

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) are said to affect two to three percent of the population for OCD (that is: more than 500,000 Australians) and one percent for OCPD, although three to ten percent of the psychiatric population is said to have it (Long, 2011). Many cases probably go untreated. Definitions If […]