Terror Attack in Auckland Today

With the terrible news of the terror attack in Auckland this afternoon, there will be a desire to understand what has happened and why. This is a normal reaction to a terrible event While we can’t control what has happened, we can control the amount that we are exposed to repeated talk about it that […]

Staying the Alert Level 4 Lockdown Course

One of the difficulties of lockdown is staying focused on the collective goal and avoiding stay-at-home fatigue. This occurs after a period of restriction, when we start to get cabin fever and feel tempted to break the rules, even if the virus hasn’t changed and the risk remains the same. During the initial lockdowns, one […]

Steady announced as Finalist in 2021 International Book Awards

Absolutely delighted to be honoured as an Award-Winning Finalist in the Health: Psychology and Mental Health category of the 2021 International Book Awards for my book, “Steady: A Guide to Better Mental Health Through and Beyond the Coronavirus Pandemic” Thank you … to the nominating committee and all those who have bought the book and […]

Keeping Well in Alert Level 4 New Zealand 2021

We are well into our first day back at Alert Level 4 as an entire nation, and I’m watching the 1pm update as new cases are announced and the genomic sequencing points to the variant originating in NSW, Australia.  If you’re feeling anxious, it’s important to understand what stokes your anxiety and what calms it. […]

Community Case of COVID-19 Detected in Auckland, August 2021

With this community case in Auckland, we have far less room for lack of consistency in our protective behaviour. We don’t know for certain, but it’s likely that the variant is Delta.  Where we may have got away with not sticking to public health measures so solidly with previous occasions, the odds are stacked against […]

A Different Work-Home Life

This week has started off very differently for a number of reasons. I quit my academic job in late 2018 for many different reasons, but a major driver was wanting to spend more time being able to spend more time as a lead parent. And, for a while, this plan was going well. Arrangements altered […]

Appearing on Making Waves: Conversations with Influencers and Disruptors June 30

I’m very pleased to tell you that I’ll be appearing on Making Waves: Conversations with Influencers and Disruptors, June 30 (Pacific Time). This is part of the TEDxSantaBarbara community, and I’m looking forward to not only connecting back with this community and Mark Sylvester who will be interviewing, but also with the wider TEDx world. […]

Guest on Selfie Podcast with Kristen Howerton

It was a pleasure to be invited to talk about pandemic mental health with Kristen Howerton on her Selfie podcast. Kristen is a Marriage and Family Therapist, the mom of four children within four years via birth and adoption, and has been blogging at Rage Against the Minivan as a coping skill since 2006. I […]

Heading South

Over the last few days I’ve had the privilege of traveling down south to Twizel and Timaru for a couple of meetings. This was a postponed trip from a couple of weeks ago, when we had both bad weather in the area I was traveling to, and a possible outbreak of the coronavirus in Wellington […]