Chris Mackey and Associates Newsletter

New Figures Confirm the Depth of the Mental Health Crisis

The Australian Healthcare Index has released new figures suggesting that almost two-thirds of patients are waiting more than 12 weeks to receive psychological care. According to the same survey, 24% of respondents reported experiencing a decline in their mental health over the past six months.

These unnerving figures hint at a growing mental health crisis in Australia. For this reason, recent and upcoming episodes of our practice podcast, Psych Spiels and Silver Linings have had an extra focus on what we can do for our mental health outside of therapy.

Subscribe to the podcast to have all the episodes sent straight to your listening device, or, if you've never heard the podcast before, you may wish to explore our curated starter packs.

Telehealth Appointments Available for Adults

We are pleased to have some availability for new adult clients who are happy to be seen through telehealth. After having limited appointment availability and relying on our waitlist system for several months, we can again take on a limited number of new clients.

We are currently only able to consider new telehealth clients who have some flexibility with the days and times they can attend. Unfortunately, we do not have any current capacity for new clients to be seen face-to-face and after 4pm appointments are also fully booked.

Due to the high amount of circulating COVID we are currently asking that potential new clients are fully vaccinated.

Chris Invited onto the Board of The Coincidence Project

Chris has been invited to be one of ten Board Members of The Coincidence Project, a non-profit international organisation.

The organisation's Mission Statement is “to educate the public about meaningful coincidences and to encourage people to share their stories of meaningful coincidences, serendipity and synchronicity, in order to inspire a leap forward in the evolution of human self-awareness: individually, interpersonally and collectively.”

The Board held its inaugural meeting on 7th July, chaired by Dr Bernard Beitman, a psychiatrist from Virginia, U.S.A, and author of the book and podcast, Connecting With Coincidence.

See here for Chris’s website with blogs and info on synchronicity

Our Psychologists Complete Individual Training Courses

Jen Green, Zora Bradonjic and Bianca Tassone have completed courses in schema therapy, polyvagal theory and acceptance and commitment therapy for teenagers, respectively.

Zora completed a one-day workshop with the Polyvagal Institute

The Institute was founded by renowned psychologist Stephen Porges. The modules were presented by Deb Dana and included an overview of polyvagal, Q&A material between Stephen and Deb and also Stephen and Peter Levine about the application of the theory, and therapy session recordings of Deb Dana applying polyvagal ideas and strategies.

Bianca completed a two-day program called DNA-V, run by Louise Hayes.

The DNA-V model which highlights the 4 key parts that we have as humans. The A stands for our Advisor; what we tell ourselves, N- our Noticer; what we see through our senses, the D- our discoverer trying new things, and V- our values and vitality.

The program involved emphasising the balance between these areas, where as CBT may look to challenge some of these thoughts.

Jen completed a certification in Individual Schema Therapy

It comprised three workshops over nine days. The first Foundational workshop focused on Chronic Mood and Anxiety, the second Intermediate workshop covered Complex Trauma and BPD and the final Advanced workshop covered Cluster C Personality Disorders.

Chris Attends The APS College of Counselling Psychologists Conference

Chris recently attended the Australian Psychological Society's College of Counselling Psychologists' Conference in Melbourne.

Speakers included Bruce Wampold, clinician and researcher who spoke about research into the effectiveness of therapy, and clinician Deb Dana who spoke about polyvagal theory.

The event ran over 2 days on the 17th and 18th of June and we have incorporated some of the material from the conference into some of our recent podcast episodes.

The practice podcast, Psych Spiels and Silver Linings has continued to release weekly episodes.

Our most recent episode, Mentors and Our Mental Health, looked at how having a mentor can benefit our mental health. It followed on from the previous episode, What Makes Effective Therapy? where we discussed what makes an effective therapist, a topic that was covered in a recent conference for the college of counselling psychologists in Melbourne.

Episodes 75 and 76 were about mentalisation, which is about how we can best empathise with others. It supports healthy relationships, leads to greater well-being and is a process central to psychological therapies.

In Effective Empathising with Mentalising we gave an introduction to the topic and spoke about what mentalising is, as well as how we can get the most benefit from it. In, More Mentalising - Some Therapy Strategies, we distilled some therapy strategies that can help with people to mentalise, particularly when they're in a conflict situation.

You can listen to the podcast on your favourite podcast player or at psychspiels.com.au

If you've enjoyed the podcast, we would really appreciate it if you could rate and review the podcast as this will extend the reach to others who may benefit.