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What rising stress is doing to Australian mental health, and where the leverage sits. A short answer first. Australian mental health has worsened over the past fifteen years, and the deterioration is concentrated in young adults. Over the same period, antidepressant use has grown much faster than the conditions it treats. The public debate has settled on the prescription as the problem to solve. I think the prescription is a downstream response to an upstream change in how st

NDIS reforms and rigorous functional capacity assessment in Melbourne Image by Magnific. No client data is present in this image. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is going through its most significant change in years. For participants, families, support coordinators and the professionals who work alongside them, the pace of change can feel unsettling. This article sets out what is shifting, in plain terms, and explains why a rigorous, well-evidenced functional capacit

By Dr Sarah Fischer, Principal Psychologist, Behavioural Edge Psychology In brief: Your explanations for your own behaviour are often confabulated after the fact. You overestimate how strongly and how long future events will affect you. Avoidance maintains most anxiety and much wider suffering. Behaviour follows environment and habit far more than willpower. The quality of your close relationships is the strongest known predictor of long-term wellbeing. Psychology is a young

By Dr Sarah Fischer, Principal Psychologist, Behavioural Edge Psychology In short, the research suggests that the name of the therapy predicts less of the outcome than five other things. The quality of the therapeutic relationship, the skill and empathy of the individual psychologist, your own engagement and hope, whether progress is measured along the way, and whether strains between you are noticed and repaired. Each is explained below, with the evidence behind it for clien

In brief: Adjustment disorder is the most common diagnosis attached to Victorian workers' compensation claims for psychological injury, and in many cases it is the wrong one. Sustained workplace bullying, harassment and discrimination produce symptom profiles that are often indistinguishable from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). DSM-5-TR treats adjustment disorder as a diagnosis of exclusion, so it should not be retained once a person meets criteria for PTSD, major depr

In brief: In Victoria, a WorkCover mental injury claim can be rejected even when the scheme’s own Independent Medical Examiner has found that the injury was predominantly caused by work. WorkSafe’s Claims Manual authorises rejection where the worker’s account of events has not been corroborated. Since 31 March 2024, mental injuries must be the predominant result of employment, injuries from usual workplace stress are excluded, and injuries from reasonable management action ha

In brief: Many adults build a large part of their identity around their work. Workplace psychosocial harm, such as sustained exclusion, undermining, unfair treatment, or being managed out, attacks that identity from the same source that once confirmed it. The result can be traumatic even when no physical or sexual harm has occurred, because it removes the assumptions people rely on to feel safe, fair, and worthy. Most such harm does not meet the DSM-5-TR criteria for PTSD, an

A claim has stalled at four months, and nobody can say with confidence whether the worker is fit to return. Two reports sit on the file and they contradict each other. A matter is approaching mediation and the psychological evidence, as it stands, would not survive a careful cross-examination. An employer is holding a decision about a safety-sensitive role and needs to know, on objective grounds, whether an employee can safely perform the inherent requirements. When a decisio

Overstimulation in a digital world - why seeking mental health is a must-have Asking for help with your mental health has long carried a weight of shame and silence. That weight is shifting, and it needs to shift faster, because the world most of us live in now asks a great deal of our attention and our nervous systems. We wake to notifications. We scroll through other people's edited highlights. We field news alerts about events on the other side of the planet while trying t

Navigating the workplace can be challenging for neurodivergent individuals. It is essential to understand your rights and the protections available to you under Australian law. This knowledge empowers you to advocate for yourself effectively. Your Legal Protections and Rights as a Neurodivergent Employee Neurodivergent conditions fall under the definition of disability in Australian law, which means you are protected by several important pieces of legislation: Key Legislation

How legal practitioners can distinguish chronic stress from vicarious trauma and moral injury, and the reflective practice structures that actually help. Image by rawpixel.com on Magnific There is a particular fatigue that accumulates in legal work. It comes from holding the weight of other people’s worst days. It comes from arguments that have to be won, clients who have to be advised, and documents that are technically correct but humanly difficult. People who work in law o

Many of the adults I work with arrive at their first appointment with a familiar story. They have spent years moving between ADHD strategies and autistic ones and noticing that nothing quite fits. The productivity systems that work for ADHD friends feel rigid and overwhelming within days. The structure and predictability that suit autistic friends start to feel constraining within a week. People describe themselves as walking contradictions. Deeply focused yet constantly dist

When someone first considers reaching out for mental health support, one of the most common early questions is which kind of professional to approach. The terms psychologist and psychiatrist are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation. They describe two distinct professions with different training, different scopes, and different roles in the Australian mental health system. The choice has practical consequences for cost, waiting time, the kind of help available,

You sit down to rest for ten minutes. An hour later you are still scrolling. In that hour, you have absorbed dozens of small comparisons against other people's bodies, careers, holidays, and relationships. You have seen distressing news from three continents. You have watched short clips about a parenting trend you now feel bad about not following. Your shoulders are tense. You feel a little flatter than when you started. If this is familiar, you are not failing at willpower.

Many adults arrive at an ADHD assessment after years of suspecting that something was different about how they think, work, and manage day-to-day life. Some have only recently come across descriptions of adult ADHD on social media. Others have been told for decades that they were lazy, sensitive, dramatic, or simply not trying hard enough. A formal assessment can be the first time someone receives a coherent account of why their experience has felt the way it has. This articl

A guide for clients working through fear or stigma around psychiatric medication while engaged in talk therapy. Key clinical points Talk therapy alone is often sufficient for mild to moderate depression, anxiety, OCD, and uncomplicated trauma. Combined therapy and medication is supported by evidence for severe depression, severe OCD, and complex or treatment-resistant trauma. Effective psychotherapy produces measurable brain change comparable to medication response. Medicatio

Image by freepik A short answer first. Yes, contemporary adults are exposed to more potentially traumatic material than any previous generation, much of it through screens. The neurobiological effects of that exposure are well documented at the individual level. The population-level implications are harder to test directly but are reasonable to infer from the data we do have. The picture is not deterministic. Treatment works. Buffering works. The path through is real and well

How recovery in Complex PTSD typically unfolds, what to watch for, and why progress often does not feel like progress Progress in Complex PTSD (CPTSD) treatment is typically defined by increased nervous system flexibility rather than absence of symptoms. Reliable markers include earlier awareness of dysregulation before full activation, faster return to the window of tolerance after a trigger (Siegel, 1999), greater agency in the moment, and behavioural change that runs ahead

In my practice, I have noticed an increasing number of clients seeking support for symptoms consistent with Complex PTSD (C-PTSD). This shift reflects a broader change in how mental health professionals and the public understand trauma and its lasting effects. In this post, I will explore why C-PTSD is gaining recognition and what the latest research tells us about effective treatment approaches. The Rise in Recognition of Complex PTSD C-PTSD has moved from the margins to mai

What the research tells us about chronic stress and professional functioning A software developer misses a deadline she would normally have met easily. A senior manager snaps at a colleague over something trivial. A registrar cannot remember the steps of a procedure she has performed a hundred times. Across all three, experience and skill are unchanged. Sustained and unrecovered stress has eroded the neural systems that support judgement, memory, and emotional regulation, and