What is “trauma”? The word seems to be used inconsistently in the mental health field, sometimes referring to an adverse event and sometimes describing the psychological injury sustained from experiencing such an event. “Trauma” comes from the Greek word for “wound, hurt, or defeat”; before 1700 it was used to mean a physical injury, the sense in which many medical practitioners today use the word... »
Grief is the universal, instinctual and adaptive reaction to loss, and particularly, the loss of a loved one (Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 2012). It is a natural response, and can be anything from missing out on a scholarship to loss of limbs through accident to loss of a car or other possessions through theft. Surely the most painful loss is that of someone we love through death. Loss is a... »
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. As a therapist, what can you give to obsessive clie... »
Most practitioners would be shocked to hear it, but without realising it, many build resistance in clients – lowering their capacity to engage – through protocols and habits which communicate something very different to the client than what the practitioner is asking or intends to convey (Rosengren, 2009). In this article, we explore five ways in which practitioners may inadvertently build resista... »
Have you ever seen a movie in which the main character wakes up in a strange hotel room, dressed weirdly, with no idea how she got there, and no relationship to the name she gave hotel staff upon check-in? Such drama is the stuff of Hollywood depictions of dissociative disorders. Dissociative identity disorder (DID), known as multiple personality disorder (MPD) until renamed in the DSM-IV (America... »
There were 22 filicide cases recorded in Australia between July 2008 and June 2010, or 11 per year on average. Seven involved the death of a child less than one year of age (Chan & Payne, 2013). Postnatal depression, or PND, figures largely in these sad statistics; it has been estimated that at least one in five mothers of full-term infants suffers from it (Priest et al, 2005, in Statewide Obstetr... »
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting 40 million adults age 18 and older (18 percent of the U.S. population) (ADAA, 2014). The percentage is similar in Australia, with 14.4 percent of Australians being affected by an anxiety disorder in any 12 month period (Mindframe, 2012). Even though only one-third of those in both countries seek treatment for the ... »
Chronic pain affects 29 percent of Australians, which means that at any given time nearly three out of ten people are suffering in some way (Stollznow Research for Pfizer Australia, 2010). When we add the emotional, physical, and financial challenges of those who care for them, the percentage of lives touched by chronic pain is much higher. In this article, we’ll define chronic pain, and look at s... »
Because most people who die by suicide give warning signals of their intentions, the best way to help prevent suicide is to learn how to recognise – and then respond to – those signs. It may be helpful to think of a continuum, at one end of which is a healthy desire to live life to the fullest, and at the other end of which is a completed suicide. Somewhere on that continuum – possibly in the half... »
The plethora of studies evaluating the efficacy and effectiveness of CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) over the last few decades has shown generally solid results for CBT as a treatment for depression (and many other disorders) with different groups, in different modes of delivery, and in manifold settings. There is no controversy on one fundamental finding: there is a vast amount of evidence show... »
What can a therapist do in session to make any therapy more intellectually attainable, or user-friendly, to someone who has at least cognitive limitations, but who also may be struggling with communicative deficits, sensory impairment, and/or psychological conditions? Morasky (2007) proposes a series of dimensions along which strategies can be evolved to adapt counselling and therapy (and he says,... »
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