Wandering Minds Psychology

24/05/2023

I am currently accepting clients for telehealth appointments between 10am and 6pm Mondays to Thursdays. Please contact us via email/phone if you wish to book an appointment or discuss your therapy/assessment needs.

For further information, please visit www.wanderingmindspsychology.com.

10/10/2022

Bulk-billed mental health care with a MHCP and current GP referral for individuals experiencing financial hardship. Contact us for further information.

28/09/2022

Our inner voice is an integral part of ourselves and one that we live with on a day to day basis. Research has shown that the we talk to ourselves can have a profound effect on our mental health wellbeing. Moreover, research has also shown that positive self-talk can help us improve a multitude of factors in our lives such as how we feel about ourselves and relate to others, and our physical and mental wellbeing.

05/09/2022

Positive psychology is a branch of psychology that focusses on the more subjectively pleasant and uplifting aspects of life. Applying this pursuit of positivity to reframing negative thoughts can help create particularly uplifting alternate thoughts during stressful moments. This is an example of a negative thought reframed from the perspective of positive psychology.

29/08/2022

Reframing is a crucial psychological tool for helping you manage stressful, negative, threatening or unwanted thoughts.

It involves verbalising or writing down a thought and reorienting the focus of the thought. Reframing your thoughts can be an important way of shifting the focus of negative or overwhelming thoughts and thereby rendering them less threatening.

It is important to remember that reframing a thought does not mean that you need to say the opposite of a thought or that you need to be excessively positive about a negative thought. It is also not about engaging in denial about the reality of a situation.

Rather reframing is about identifying and reorienting the focus of a thought with the aim of making the thought less threatening and more purposeful. Learning to identify and reframe thoughts is a crucial part of overcoming the effects of the negative scripts about our capacities that many of us carry in our minds.

Over time reframing can help you engage with and rescript challenging thought patterns which could have otherwise seemed difficult to shift.

11/08/2022

Solitude and loneliness are two terms that are often confused or used interchangeably.

Solitude results from a personal choice, where an individual expresses their desire to be alone. Solitude is a purposeful and satisfying experience which facilitates improved mental health. Nevertheless, some individual’s often experience a sense of guilt associated with solitude due to the prevailing social pressure to remain constantly socially active. Scheduling in moments of solitude is often beneficial to an individual’s mental health.

Loneliness, on the other hand, is a painful and isolating experience. It is often accompanied with feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness and can damage a person’s self-esteem. Loneliness can be an outcome of a range of factors including anxiety, social and economic barriers to being socially connected, or challenges with engaging in social activity. Overtime, unaddressed concerns of loneliness may undermine an individual’s mental health.

If you or someone you know is struggling with loneliness, please speak to your GP or mental health care professional for further support.

19/07/2022

We’ve all heard the idea that work is meant to be challenging. A hard day’s work being rewarding is an idea that is often inculcated in us from a young age, yet many of us mistakenly assume that this also means that work is meant to be intolerable by its very nature. This can lead to individuals being reluctant to actively curate a sense of fulfilment at work.

Work can be fulfilling and at its best can be an integral part of an individual’s life. Sometimes the work we choose is out of necessity and it becomes important to find ways of deriving a sense of satisfaction from our job.

The ideas listed here may help you re-evaluate your job role and attempt to derive greater satisfaction from work.

These ideas are not meant to substitute for deliberate action in cases of workplace abuse or bullying or to justify being stuck in a deeply flawed work role. Sometimes leaving a job role is also important to consider. This is only a list of ideas to explore how some satisfaction can be sought in already stable job roles.

16/06/2022

In psychology, “insight” refers to the awareness of the mechanisms underpinning various aspects of your current mental health. The term also refers to an understanding of how one’s thoughts, feelings and circumstances are connected in order to undermine one’s mental health.

I often find that uncovering the mental associations that undermine an individual’s mental health is amongst the most satisfying aspects of therapy. These are the hidden thought processes that trap or generate anxiety when faced with challenges in life. A psychologist or a mental health care professional can be particularly helpful in developing insight by guiding you towards understanding your thoughts and feelings.

It can be tempting to assume that addressing one’s challenges involves a simple matter of developing coping skills and progressing with life. However, I feel that this is equivalent to putting a band aid on an unclean would. And much like a festering wound, it is likely that the issues precipitating your struggles will continue to trigger and upset you.

I advocate for an approach that helps an individual purposefully develop insight whilst attending to the practical aspects of their mental health challenges. Developing insight can often feel liberating and can make implementing coping skills more effective.

I feel that becoming insightful about your mental health challenges is an important step towards managing your mental health, and I encourage you to work towards developing insight as a part of your mental health journey.

27/04/2022

Journaling is a commonly used therapeutic technique. It often involves writing your thoughts, feelings, and ideas on a book. Journaling has a long history of being therapeutically beneficial and is an accessible therapeutic technique. Although the iconic image of journaling involves an individual sitting down with a book, journaling can also be conducted through digital mediums or even through sound recordings. I totally recommend regular journaling!

- Jerome Perera

12/04/2022

The mental load affects all of us on a day to day basis. Women often tend to bear the brunt of the mental load due to societal and cultural expectations. Equipping ourselves with the words will help us have meaningful conversations about the mental load and its effects on us with our partners, families, friends and colleagues.

31/03/2022

Wandering Minds Psychology has current availability for telehealth sessions (video/phone) with our Clinical Psychologist, Jerome Perera. Book online at https://www.halaxy.com/profile/wandering-minds-psychology/location/692631 or visit wanderingmindspsychology.com for more information.

At Wandering Minds Psychology we are passionate about sustainably addressing adult mental health needs via Telehealth based services. We understand that every individual has a unique journey in life which contributes to the state of their mental health. At Wandering Minds Psychology our aim is to un

31/03/2022

A consequence of trauma is a difficulty coping with intrusive thoughts. The constant stream of agitating thoughts and worries can often feel endless. Often these thoughts intrude into a person’s mind when they are in silence, alone or feeling overwhelmed. It is in these moments that one’s mind can seem to conspire against them by generating stressful or self-critical thoughts. This can cause an individual to seek constant stimulation in order to avoid silence altogether.

Our societies seem to be built upon the idea that constant thought is universally valuable. As though a driven mind, no matter how maladaptive is emblematic of a successful individual. However, being comfortable with silence and one’s thoughts is what can allow for creativity, a mental break, and could lead to deriving a deeper satisfaction from life.

Therefore, being content with sitting in silence without being overwhelmed by streams of threatening thoughts could be a state of mind that is worthwhile to cultivate. It is no wonder that many monks and ascetics advocate for this way of life.

I feel that achieving this state of being content and comfortable in silence with one’s thoughts is a goal worth striving for both in therapy and in life.

- Jerome Perera