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Updated as of 30 October 2026 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

What it means to be the generation that breaks the cycle of intergenerational parenting harm Updated as of 30 October 2026 Image by freepik There is a particular kind of exhaustion that belongs to the parent who is trying to do it differently. You know the one. You grew up in a house where feelings were a problem to be solved, or silenced, or punished. Maybe anger meant you were sent to your room. Maybe crying was met with “stop that” or “you’re fine.” Maybe the emotional t

Updated as of 30 October 2026 What is this article about: Research spanning more than four decades shows a consistent pattern. A significant proportion of trauma survivors go on to build impressive careers and achieve high professional standing. The Kauai Longitudinal Study found that roughly one-third of high-risk children became competent, confident adults. The Goertzel biographical study found that approximately 75% of more than 400 eminent twentieth-century figures experi

Updated as of 30 October 2026 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 o

Overstimulation in a digital world - why seeking mental health is a must-have Updated as of 30 October 2026 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 sid

How Behavioural Edge Psychology supports professionals carrying complex, high-stakes work Updated as of 30 October 2026 Therapy for senior professionals in high-stakes roles addresses several psychologically distinct patterns. Vicarious trauma and cumulative exposure follow repeated contact with other people’s traumatic material (McCann & Pearlman, 1990). Moral injury, the psychological harm from acts that transgress one’s ethical beliefs under constrained conditions (Litz et

Image by freepik Updated as of 30 October 2026 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

By Dr Sarah Fischer, Principal Psychologist, Behavioural Edge Psychology Published 23 October 2026 Emotions are signals. Each one tells you something about what matters to you and prepares your body and mind to respond. Most emotions rise and settle on their own. They tend to linger when we push them down, avoid what they point to, or go over the same thoughts again and again. In this article I explain eight common emotions, what tends to keep each one going, and the strategi

What men are carrying, and how a woman psychologist is learning to meet them where they are I am a woman in my mid-forties. I have two daughters, a partner and a private practice in Melbourne. When a man walks into my consulting room he does not see someone who looks like him. He sees a woman, often from a different generation, working in a profession that was not designed with him in mind. And, more and more, he comes anyway. In 2023 Australia had 29,896 registered female ge

If you have started to wonder whether you might be autistic, you are in a growing company. Adults of every age and gender are seeking autism assessment in larger numbers than at any point before. For some the prompt is a child's or sibling's diagnosis that suddenly explains their own history. For others it is a life transition, a workplace crisis, the end of a relationship, or simply the accumulated weight of decades of social exhaustion. For women in their forties and fiftie

How ADHD burnout and Autistic burnout differs from standard work stress, what the evidence says, and how to respond clinically Neurodivergent burnout is a distinct clinical pattern that differs from standard work stress in three important ways. Recovery is measured in months rather than weeks, skill loss can be substantial and persistent, and standard rest-based interventions are insufficient. Autistic burnout has been defined in research by Raymaker et al. (2020), with the c

Two equally capable students sit the same exam. One bombs it and doubles down on study. The other bombs it and stops trying. A year later, their results have diverged dramatically. The difference between them is not intelligence, not preparation time, and not the quality of their teaching. It is what they believe about themselves. This pattern plays out across every performance domain, from sport to music to professional work. And it is not a coincidence. The relationship bet

If you are reading this, you might be considering therapy for the first time, searching for a psychologist who truly understands contemporary life stress, or perhaps you are an existing client curious to know more about the person sitting across from you in sessions. Either way, I am glad you are here. My name is Sarah Fischer, and I am the Principal Psychologist at Behavioural Edge Psychology. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself properly, not just with credentials

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: 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