Blog

Shame is an extremely common experience for individuals who have or have had difficulties with substance use and addiction. In some cases, the shame comes before the substance use, and in some cases, it happens after the substance use. Shame is an experience of the self as flawed, inadequate, deficient, incompetent and worthless. When we feel shame, our action, urge or impulse is to hide these flaws or inadequacies from others to maintain a sense of being positively regarded and valued. The fear is that if others were to see our imperfection[...]

Life across the world has been transformed in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In many countries, COVID-19 has had devastating consequences to the health and wellbeing of individuals across the lifespan. It has also resulted in drastic changes to the world economy as many people have been forced into working online or in other cases have sadly lost their job and entered a time of terrible hardship. [...]

Life in the time of COVID-19 is akin to something most of us have never encountered before. On hold for now are day trips, overseas holidays, long afternoon lunches in the sun with groups of friends and family and for many people their previous work role has either disappeared or changed in a significant way. The speed of these changes has left many people feeling overwhelmed, anxious, sad and angry. Others have responded by downplaying or minimising the severity that the COVID 19 virus poses to vulnerable groups, front-line health workers and [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed life as we know it across many regions of the world in just a few short months. I could not have fathomed how quickly my life and that of everyone impacted by COVID-19 could be upended. We are all adjusting to new terminology such as “social distancing”, “essential and non-essential services”, “self isolation” and “flattening the curve”. While these are vital public health measures required to curb the rate of COVID-19 spread, the social and economic consequences are enormous. One of t[...]

Anxiety disorders can affect people from any walk of life but often many struggle to recognise that they are experiencing anxiety and it can be common for people to want to keep the issue private. This means that many can find it tough to admit there is a problem, often relating it to general “stress” or in Andrew’s case being “highly-strung”. In a series of interviews conducted by Bayside, we attempt to shed light on the issues surrounding anxiety and find some common ground for those who experience anxiety. Tell us a litt[...]

When we get asked “does hypnotherapy work?” (as we do innumerable times) a torrent of assumptions underpin the question. Typically we appreciate the wishful element in such a question but, in general, we recommend a healthy sense of scepticism. Recently, Bayside Psychotherapy received a visit by an intelligent, young Google employee for a survey. He also posed the question while voicing his opinion that hypnotherapy doesn’t work. I appreciated his honesty - not [...]

Mindfulness meditation has gained enormous popularity in the last decade and is now being offered as a ‘self help’ or therapy method. It has also been incorporated into mainstream psychological treatments, namely CBT, despite mindfulness and CBT coming from completely different ideological frameworks (interestingly, it sometimes appears proponents of mindfulness are unwittingly [...]