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Retrieved and edited 06/12/2021 from “Voice of Experience: Three rules for identifying abnormal child sexual behaviors” by Gregory K. Moffatt, a veteran counsellor with more than 30 years experience. If you are a survivor of sexual trauma at any age, I encourage you not to read this article. From the perspective of Moffatt’s professional experience,… Continue reading Three rules for identifying abnormal child sexual behaviours

Author: Lori Gottlieb Maybe you should talk to someone is a genuine, funny, touching, and realistic memoir of one therapist, as she navigates a difficult time in her professional and personal life. I couldn’t put this book down. As a therapeutic counsellor myself, the book gave me a greater understanding of psychology and human behaviour.… Continue reading Maybe you should Talk to Someone

Human-Kind. Isn’t that lovely. We have moved away from the patriarchal term mankind – ‘man’ who has not always been ‘kind’, necessarily – toward equality between the sexes and acknowledging gender fluidity. Noah touches on this. If you’re interested in the evolution of humanity and how we are capable of co-operating as a global community,… Continue reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

I was recently browsing some of the units I completed for my counselling diploma – for revision. The human memory has not evolved to store, organise, categorise and recall all the large amounts of information we collect every day, nor is our memory always accurate. It’s important for counsellors and therapists to keep up to… Continue reading Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Hello readers! A few of the cognitive styles below were mentioned in my last post. As humans, we have a tendency to forget things so a bit of revision can be useful. Many people have cognitive processes that result in overall unhelpful thinking styles that they tend to apply globally across situations and which may… Continue reading Problematic Thinking Styles (continued)

Well, hello and good morning, afternoon, and evening readers. I truly hope you’re swimming in the pleasantries of life rather than keeping your head above water in the unpleasant swamp. HOPE = Hold On Pain Ends. And there’s generally a learning or personal growth that comes after the storm of every painful experience, even if… Continue reading Cognitive (thinking) Errors

Adapted from Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors, Institute Inbrief, Edition 359. Good day readers! How are you? … Shit? Depressed? Anxious? Angry? First of all, if you’re someone who says “I feel shit”, I would encourage you to use a more accurate descriptor instead of shit. Tell your brain what emotion or feeling you are… Continue reading Nature’s Effect On Our Mental Health

Hello readers. I hope you are well. I imagine some of you are struggling and some of you are flourishing. Life consists of both. As humans, we relish pleasurable feelings and experiences and we tend to dislike uncomfortable emotions and experiences. I get it. I am just like you. We share this. I hope that… Continue reading What does human development mean to you? How often are we thinking about our own development? Here is a start (“,)

Finding Meaning: Masculinity in Crisis Many young men seek counselling because they feel lost (Seidler, et al., 2016). This happens especially in today’s world, where the boundaries of how a man is supposed to behave are shifting rapidly. It’s a difficult time for young men to find their place in life as they struggle to… Continue reading Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors. (2021). Finding Meaning: Masculinity in Crisis (Issue 358 // Institute Inbrief). Retrieved from https://mailchi.mp/aipc/institute-inbrief-179116?e=5e8ce9018d

Jungian analysts have called it the “swampland of the soul”. Other psychotherapy writers have observed how it originally served to keep us safe; the tendency to shame has been a universal one in which our desire to hide our flaws from others has saved us from being kicked out of the group (the society), which… Continue reading Building Shame Resilience (2018). AIPC Article Library. Retrieved July 25, 2021 from https://www.aipc.net.au/articles/building-shame-resilience-in-clients/

All human beings experience anger at least occasionally. It’s a natural emotion helping us recognise that we or someone or something we care about has been violated or treated badly. When we feel threatened or our goals are thwarted, anger is a coping mechanism that enables us to act decisively, especially in situations where there… Continue reading AIPC (2021). Busting Common Myths About Anger. Issue 355 // Institute Inbrief. Retrieved June 17, 2021.

Retrieved from Issue 346 of Institute Inbrief 20/01/2021 Paranoia: Definition and levels When a person believes that others are “out to get them”, trying to stalk or harm them, or paying excessive attention to them for no reason, they may be experiencing paranoia. Occurring in many mental health conditions, paranoia is most often present in… Continue reading Addressing Paranoia in Counselling

As I always like to say, there are as many reasons why people self-sabotage as there are people. A common theme is to protect the self from failure, feeling things we don’t want to feel, and to control our experiences. One of the hidden culprits behind self-sabotage is the need for perfection and control. Self-sabotage… Continue reading Self-sabotage is self-sabotaging. Why would anyone do this?

People living with obsessive-compulsive disorder are encouraged to follow three general tips for effective self-management. They are: challenge the obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours (this includes use of distraction skills, and resisting the compulsion), maintain high self-care (you may need to put your needs first a lot – this is NOT selfishness or self-centredness), and… Continue reading OCD: tips for self-management

In the 1960s, American neuroscientist Paul MacLean formulated the ‘Triune Brain’ model, which is based on the division of the human brain into three distinct regions. MacLean’s model suggests the human brain is organized into a hierarchy, which itself is based on an evolutionary view of brain development. The three regions are as follows: Reptilian… Continue reading The ‘Triune Brain’ theory by Neuroscientist Paul MacLean — an evolutionary perspective

Inattentional Blindness is the failure to notice an unexpected object in a visual display. Cognitive Psychology is an approach to understanding human cognition by observing behaviour of people performing cognitive tasks. It is concerned with the internal processes involved in making sense of our environment, and deciding what behaviour to be appropriate. These processes include… Continue reading Inattentional Blindness: What else are we missing?

What is meant by self-harm? Self-harm is any behaviour that involves the deliberate causing of pain or injury to oneself without the intention to end your life. Self-harm can include behaviours such as cutting, burning or hitting oneself, binge-eating or starvation, or repeatedly putting oneself in dangerous situations. It can also involve abuse of drugs… Continue reading Understanding self-harm, self-injury, and self-destruction

Stephen Porges, psychiatry professor and researcher, on the polyvagal theory he developed to understand our reactions to trauma: [Paraphrased] Polyvagal theory articulates three branches of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that evolved from primitive vertebrates to mammals. First, there is a system known as ‘freeze’, which involves death feigning or immobilisation. Second, the ANS has… Continue reading Polyvagal Theory and Trauma – Dr. Stephen Porges

In our previous article (read it here), we asked why men do not seem to express emotion as easily as women do. Was there some pathology, or should we just put the differences down to male-female tendencies? We identified Dr Ron Levant’s notion of “normative male alexithymia” as representative of one side of the controversy: namely,… Continue reading Men and Emotions: From Repression to Expression published by AIPC (2019)

Please click on the link for the article by BY ERIC LANGSHUR AND NATE KLEMP PHD