Australia’s mental health system is in a neglected and dire state.  Inadequate leadership and funding by successive governments is leading to the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Australians. The suicide rate is at a near 10 year high.   Not only is there a moral and social responsibility to address this issue, but there is also a strong economic argument for increasing investment in mental health care. In Australia it is estimated that that about 20 per cent of the adult population – approximately 3.6 million people – experience mental illness.  An ad ..read more

Your child races over to you with a huge smile on their face bursting to tell you about their recent success. Filled with feelings of delight and relief, you naturally find yourself showering your child with praise – “well done”, “you’re so smart”, “you’re a clever girl”, “you aced it”, “wow first place”, and so you go on… At first thought, it’s easy to think that such praise will communicate how proud you are of their success and motivate them to do well in the future. However, research into human motivation suggests that this may not be the case, and that lauding a child’s abilities may actu ..read more

The High School Certificate exams commence in a little over two months. Here are 15 survival tips. Get enough sleep – at least 9 hours. To promote sleep, turn lights out 30 minutes prior, stick to a sleep routine Monday through Thursday, and don’t use technology in your room – especially your bed. It’s important that you learn to associate your bed with relaxation and sleep. Schedule in breaks from study. Try to have at least two nights per weeks that does not involve study. Limit alcohol and avoid marijuana. Think about what food and drink you are consuming. Drink plenty of water to improve ..read more

Students progressing towards their HSC or making the transition to university are often provided with study skills coaching programs in the hope of increasing their grades. However, these programs have tended to only produce modest results.  In addition to acquiring more effective study skills, students also need to learn how to motivate themselves and cope with stress and adversity. To address this need, Dr John Franklin, from Macquarie University, and I developed a program called ‘Successology 101’ – a holistic coaching program for helping students develop the necessary study skills, as ..read more

Psychology has had a long love affair with the idea of self-esteem – the concept that our self-worth is bound up in perceiving ourselves as being good at things that matter to us. Research shows that low self-esteem is linked with a wide range of poor life outcomes. Intuitively it makes sense to try to boost self-esteem as an effort to inoculate ourselves against this. But what if striving towards self-esteem was not necessarily associated with lasting happiness and potentially linked to a range of negative outcomes? Below is a brilliant article by Professor Steven Hayes from the University of ..read more

More and more children are being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Between 2001 to 2011, prescriptions for the treatment of ADHD increased by 72.9%. ADHD is a heritable brain disorder characterised by either inattention, hyperactivity or both. The most comprehensive review to date, estimates that around 5% of children and adolescents have ADHD. This rapid increase in prescriptions has sparked significant debate about whether the disorder is being overdiagnosed. Critics argue that the increase is due to a range of factors. They say a gradual broadening of ..read more

Suddenly Australians are facing a crisis unlike any other we’ve experienced. Parts of Australia are seeing rapid growth of people diagnosed with COVID-19, albeit off low base numbers. It’s normal to be feeling increasingly worried about what this means for your health, the health of your loved ones, your employment and your future. You may also be experiencing increasing anger and frustration in the face of panic buying, mixed political messages and some Australians clearly ignoring government recommendations. Here is a list of strategies to help promote wellbeing during this time. Take ‘effe ..read more

New year’s resolutions can be so seductive. I’m always lured into them. They offer an inspiring and hopeful start to the year. Get fit. Tick. Spend more time with the kids. Tick. Read more books. Yep, check that off too. Yet they’re often all too easily forgotten, abandoned and for some of us just plain overwhelming. Does this sound familiar? The traditional approach to increasing the probability of succeeding at resolutions has been to set SMART goals – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-limited. Over 35 years of empirical research has established the importance of ..read more