Engage With Life

Early Vs. Later Trauma: How timing shapes healing

10/1/2026

A man sits alone on a bench beneath a tree, surrounded by soft natural light -- a quiet moment of stillness and reflection

Photo: chris paul / Unsplash

If you're in therapy — or thinking about starting — you may have wondered why healing feels so different for different people. Why some people seem to be finding their way back to themselves, while others feel like they're building something they've never quite had. One of the reasons for this has to do with when trauma first began. Understanding this difference won't speed up your healing. But it might help you be more patient, and more compassionate, with yourself.

Reclaiming Your Story: Building a Self Beyond the Watchful Gaze

14/9/2025

The Weight of Being Seen
If you're reading this, you might know the exhausting experience of living under what feels like constant surveillance—not necessarily from cameras or authorities, but from an internalised sense that you're always being evaluated, measured, and found lacking. This invisible jury follows you everywhere, whispering about what you should be doing, how you should look, what counts as acceptable.
For those carrying complex trauma, this feeling runs deeper than social anxiety. It's woven into the very fabric of how we learned to survive. We became experts at reading rooms, anticipating reactions, shape-shifting to meet others' expectations—all while losing touch with what we actually wanted, needed, or valued.
The philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about how power structures don't just control us through force, but by making us feel constantly observed and judged. When trauma happens early and repeatedly, especially in relationships that were supposed to be safe, we internalise this surveillance system. We become our own prison guards, our own harsh critics.
But; You can learn to step outside this panopticon. You can build a sense of self that isn't dependent on external validation or approval.

Dealing with uncertainty in coronavirus times

10/4/2020

We are living in a time of great uncertainty. Life as we know it is being upended by coronavirus. You may be afraid of losing your job, of not being able to pay the rent or mortgage, of your elderly parents becoming ill ... of yourself becoming more isolated, more anxious, more depressed, more angry - and finding you have no way to deal with it.

Tips on finding calm during coronavirus isolation

31/3/2020

The Coronavirus pandemic has brought a wave of complexity and difficulty into regular life. It's like a wrecking ball has destroyed a building we all thought was stable and would endure. The stress that comes as a result is real, and we have little choice other than to learn how to cope with it.
Here are some tips to get started.

Tips for Thriving in the Social Media Age

25/11/2017

The Australian Psychological Society has published their "8 tops for thriving in the digital age." It's a helpful and practical guide to helping navigate the complicated and sometimes distressing needs of social media.

Perfection Vs. Excellence

28/7/2017

Perfectionism is something I see a lot as a therapist. While high standards and operating at your best are worthwhile goals, perfectionism can be a major impediment to living your life as you would prefer.

The Power of Forgiveness

4/4/2016

Forgiveness is being examined in mental health circles with increasing regularity, and the evidence that links forgiveness to mental health is becoming increasingly irrefutable. Forgiveness of others, forgiveness of self, and being forgiven by others are all linked in various ways to depression, particularly as we age. Developing and utilising forgiveness in therapy (and of course life!) is likely to be of great benefit.

Introverts - Ways of interacting with the world.

22/3/2015

Introverts are commonly and falsely considered to be shy or passive people, attempting to navigate the world with an imposing character flaw. Research has however repeatedly found that introverts are simply people who operate within a broad band of behaviours that are simply the way they operate, and in no way represent a flaw or negative way of being.

10 habits for Happiness with a key ingredient!

4/4/2014

A recent study finds that one of the key components to living a happier life is a habit most people don't often practice.

5,000 people were surveyed by the charity Action for Happiness, in collaboration with Do Something Different. They found an amazing thing – the item that most impacts on our ability to be happy, was the very thing people indicated they practiced least! What is that key habit?

The Art of Self-Compassion

19/2/2014

Contemporary society seems to be in the grip of a self-confidence crisis. I so commonly hear people report that they "have no self-confidence" or "have low self-esteem."

The response of many people to societal demands to be "confident," is to rush around doing constructive, visible things that can give us a sense that we have done what a "confident" person would, or that we've been noticed by others and praised, or that we can compare ourselves to others and feel somehow better than they are. This temporary ego inflation may make us feel good for a while, but it doesn't last. We end up in a cycle of ups and downs that is not only exhausting, but emotionally damaging as well. Ultimately it makes us fundamentally unhappy.

One result of this damaging cycle are the innumerable clients who believe that they are "not good enough."