Showing results by publisher "Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd" in Psychology & Mental Health

In the second Quarterly Essay of 2005, Gail Bell investigates Australia's depression epidemic. Why, she wonders, do well over a million Australians now take anti-depressant drugs? This is a fresh, frank and independent look at the depression culture and the move to medicalise sadness. Bell examines how the prescription culture operates, scrutinising the role of big drug companies and GPs and talking to those who take - and don't take - the new anti-depressants, from anxious students to lonely retirees.

Drawing on research from a wide variety of subject areas, from neuroscience to psychology, from motivation theory to accelerated learning, from memory to diet, this book shows how everyone has the capacity to succeed and how most people use only a very small portion of their talents.

I can’t face this. No one understands how hard it is for me. Sound familiar? Thoughts such as these can trigger us to feel anxious, stupid, upset and frustrated. We have choices. We can blame ourselves and others, avoid certain situations and worry. Or we can acknowledge our thoughts and feelings and take our power back from anxiety by facing it with understanding, courage and compassion. This audiobook offers hope to people who struggle with anxiety, as well as to those who support them.

With a particular interest in the rising levels of anxiety, Stella O'Malley demonstrates how our increasingly perfectionist and materialistic lifestyles have created a society which is shallow and toxic, high on expectation and low on satisfaction. With simple thinking tools, this audiobook aims to empower listeners to face any mental health challenges which come their way.

Jim Lucey has been working for more than 25 years with patients suffering from mental health problems. When people at their most vulnerable present to his room at St Patrick’s University Hospital, Dublin, they reveal their fears, traumas and very real human predicaments. Most of the assessments described in this audiobook took place in this room. While the patients’ stories are diverse, one common theme emerges - that of recovery. 

If your mind has a mind of its own, this is the audiobook that will teach you how to discipline it and stop it wandering off.... Can you really rewire an adult brain? In theory the answer is yes, but there's a problem: no one seems to know exactly how to do it. In Override, science journalist Caroline Williams sets off on a mission for the answer. Delving into the latest studies on brain plasticity, she tries to square her findings with brain plasticity - that the brain adapts physically as we learn something new.

As a progressive commentator on Fox News and now CNN, Sally Kohn has made a career out of bridging intractable political differences and learning how to talk respectfully with people whose views she disagrees with passionately. Her viral TED Talk on the need to practice emotional - rather than political - correctness sparked a new way of considering how often we amplify our differences and diminish our connections. But these days even famously 'nice' Kohn finds herself wanting to breathe fire at her enemies. 

As a psychiatrist, Brendan Kelly is used to extolling the benefits of a daily meditation practice, but following his own advice is a different story. Finding the time to sit quietly every day isn’t easy when you’re already trying to juggle a stressful job, a busy family life, a cinema addiction, a cake habit, a high-maintenance cat and low-level feelings of guilt over an unused gym membership. But this is the year he is going to do it. 

Minimalism is not just a series of actions but also a total mind-set shift. It recognises that modern-day abundance has not increased our level of happiness - in fact we are less happy than generations before despite having more - and it argues that embracing less will allow us to live more fully. This handbook gives us the tools to achieve this complete life-changing mental shift, teaching us how to search for items and thoughts that add value to our lives and how to get rid of nonessential physical and mental clutter.

At 11 years old, Gabriel Naumann is witness to a horrific crime. Twenty-nine years later his girlfriend is taken. Then the messages begin. 'If you want to find her, then you'll have to find me.' Somebody knows the truth. Somebody knows what he did. And now his girlfriend will pay for it - unless he can find her in time. When you've spent decades running from your past, what do you do when it finally catches up with you?

A candid and beautifully written wrinkles-and-all meditation on the middle years, with all their dilemmas and challenges.... In a society obsessed with living longer and looking younger, what does middle age nowadays mean? How should a 50-something be in a world ceaselessly redefining ageing, youth and experience? The Middlepause offers hope and heart. Cutting through society's clamorous demands to work longer and stay young, it delivers a clear-eyed account of midlife's challenges.

Everybody is talking about the healing properties of nature. Hospitals are being retrofitted with gardens and forests reimagined as wellbeing centres. Where has this come from, and what does 'going to nature' mean? Where is it - at the end of a garden, beyond the tarmac fringes of a city, at the summit of a mountain? Drawing on history, science, literature and art, Samantha Walton shows that the nature cure has deep roots - but, as we face an unprecedented crisis of mental health, social injustice and environmental devastation, the search for it is more urgent now than ever.

Shane Carthy writes frankly and eloquently about his journey over the last five years. He details, without overdramatising, the downward spiral which, days after producing a man-of-the-match display in Dublin’s 2014 Leinster under-21 final win over Meath, saw him wake up in St Patrick’s Mental Hospital. Carthy also explains what ultimately brought him back to where he is now, discovering a path where life is worth living. 

The speed of modern culture combined with the hyper-connectivity of technology has shifted our perspective from good enough to never enough. We are now primed to expect more, to aspire to better and to want nothing less than the best. The reality? It’s making us miserable. So if you’d like to swap the weight of ‘having it all’ for having more with less, then get ready: it’s time to discover your happy medium.

It has been remarked that if the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn’t. Commencing with a brief history of neuroscience, from the ancient practice of drilling holes in the head to relieve headaches to the latest results from MRI and CT scans, this accessible guide sets out to explore exactly what we do know about the brain. Including the most up-to-date research on the cerebral processes, this entertaining introduction assumes no previous scientific knowledge.

When you have an eating issue it can feel like the loneliest, hardest place in the world to be. But it doesn't have to be this way. No one knows this better than author Melinda Hutchings, who battled anorexia for three years. Drawing on her own experience, as well as other people's, Melinda openly discusses what this feels like on the inside, how to cope with the complexity of emotions, what to do about where you are at with your eating issue, and what you can look forward to when you get to the other side.

Have you tried everything and can't lose weight? Find diet or exercise alone don't work? Hold a distorted body image? Tap into your inherent power to facilitate positive changes and alter the way you think, feel, and look! Use creative visualization to help you build your confidence and reshape your body. Body Transformation Inside-Out uses the correlation between mind, body, and emotions to promote health, vitality, and serenity.

Winston Churchill, Andy Warhol, Tom Cruise, Agatha Christie, and Pablo Picasso were all famous and successful in their chosen professions. And they were all dyslexic. But what is dyslexia? Are there different types of dyslexia? Is there a cure? This guide answers these and other questions, providing a concise explanation of the causes and symptoms of dyslexia, a learning disorder that inhibits the reading and writing ability of millions of children and adults worldwide.

While society as a whole is becoming increasingly conscious of mental health, and the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic has made the issue ever more salient, the idea of asking for professional help has largely remained taboo. In this empathetic and practical guide, drawing on some of the latest studies in the field, psychotherapist Donna Maria Bottomley examines these anxieties and argues that therapy should be just as acceptable as going to the doctor for a check-up or booking your car into the garage, and needn’t be our last resort.