Guide helps parents recognize teen stress signs, triggers, and impacts. It highlights benefits of counselling, professional support by Melbourne psychologists, and services by Your Mind Matters, including telehealth.
Mental health support at work reduces absenteeism, boosts productivity, and cuts costs in Australian businesses. Implementing Employee Assistance Programs and fostering open dialogue improves employee well-being and retention.
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) provide confidential mental health support, reducing stress, absenteeism, and boosting productivity. Tailored and flexible, including telehealth, they foster a supportive, healthier workplace.
Your Mind Matters builds trust in mental health through compassionate, evidence-based, and personalized care, offering Melbourne psychologists, telehealth, ADHD/autism assessments, and workplace support programs.
In today’s busy world, accessing support has become easier with online services. A Telehealth psychologist offers the same professional, evidence-based care you would receive in person, but with the convenience of connecting from home, work, or anywhere with internet access.
Not sure if Telehealth psychology is right for you? Here are five signs you might benefit from working with a psychologist online.
For many Australians, local psychology services may be limited. A Telehealth psychologist in Australia makes it possible to access professional support without travelling long distances. This ensures you can receive consistent care, no matter where you live.
Balancing work, study, or family life can make it difficult to attend in-person sessions. Telehealth appointments save time by cutting out travel, making it easier to fit therapy into your week.
Some people find it easier to open up in a familiar environment. Meeting with a psychologist via Telehealth can provide a greater sense of comfort and reduce the anxiety that may come with attending a clinic.
Telehealth can be combined with face-to-face sessions, giving you choice and flexibility. This means you can still see a psychologist in person if you prefer, but switch to online sessions when needed — such as during busy times, illness, or travel.
Whether you are seeking an ADHD assessment online or counselling for trauma, anxiety, or relationships, Telehealth gives you access to psychologists who may not be based in your local area. This expands your options and helps you find the right professional fit.
A Telehealth psychologist provides the same standard of professional care as in-person sessions, with the added convenience of flexibility and accessibility. If you are considering support for your mental health, Telehealth might be a helpful option.
At Your Mind Matters Psychology Services, our Melbourne-based team also offers Telehealth psychology across Australia, including assessments and therapy.
📞 Get in touch today to book a Telehealth psychologist appointment.
Our Blog Author
This post was written by the team at Your Mind Matters. Telehealth sessions with our psychologists are available across Australia. Meet our team.
In today’s busy world, flexibility in accessing mental health support is more important than ever. Telehealth psychology sessions allow you to connect with a qualified psychologist from the comfort of your home, school, or workplace. At Your Mind Matters (YMM), our clinicians offer secure, evidence-based telehealth services to ensure support is available wherever you are in Victoria and across Australia.
Telehealth refers to psychological consultations delivered via a secure online platform. You’ll speak with your psychologist in real time, just as you would in a clinic, but without the need to travel. Research shows that telehealth can be just as effective as face-to-face sessions for many mental health concerns, including:
Telehealth may be suitable if you prefer the comfort of your own space, live outside Melbourne, or find it difficult to attend in person. For children and young people, telehealth can work best when a parent, carer, or support worker is nearby to assist with technology and engagement.
If you’re unsure, our team can help you decide whether telehealth or in-clinic appointments are the best fit for your needs.
At Your Mind Matters, our psychologists follow strict professional and ethical standards to ensure that online sessions are safe, private, and effective. This includes:
Accessing telehealth psychology at YMM is simple:
Whether you are seeking an ADHD or autism assessment, or ongoing therapy, our telehealth psychologists are here to support you.
Book a telehealth appointment with a psychologist today. Take a look at our clinicians and, once you know who you’d like to work with, call us or book online.
Written by the team at Your Mind Matters
Our blog is written by the registered psychologists at Your Mind Matters Psychology Services in Notting Hill, Melbourne. If something here speaks to your situation, our team is here to help. Meet our team.
There’s no question that feelings can be highly, highly unpleasant. For many people, emotions can become so overpowering that they can compel us to do things we mightn’t be proud of – we can yell, throw things, or binge drink.
Many clients we see at Your Mind Matters struggle with big emotions – some clients report feeling emotionally dysregulated when they’re upset, and struggle to bring themselves back to a baseline, neutral state. It’s a common problem, and can lead to all kinds of difficulties.
This blog is about Distress Tolerance, which is a host of psychological tools that can help us when we’re struggling with truly overwhelming feelings. The goal of Distress Tolerance is not to eliminate an emotion, or even significantly reduce its intensity – instead, it’s about teaching us to tolerate the emotion, and withstand the urges that can come with it. It belongs to a kind of therapy called Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT).
DBT is an evidence-based therapy for multiple forms of mental health challenges, and contains plenty of ideas that can be great for anyone’s emotional wellbeing. DBT breaks itself up into lots of different bits and pieces – one of these is a Skills component, that has Distress Tolerance as a sub-school inside it. You can think of DBT as a big book – Skills is a chapter, and Distress Tolerance takes up a few pages in that chapter.
Distress Tolerance is about asking yourself what behaviours your emotions urge you toward, with a particular focus on the kind of behaviours that lead to greater distress later on – i.e., make the situation worse. For instance, if you were a tennis player whose emotions led to an urge to smash your racquet against the court, your Distress Tolerance goal could be to reduce your racquet-smashing – because this will make you feel embarrassed or guilty later on, and avoid the competitive consequences that come with it. Note the player’s goal wouldn’t be to feel less angry, although this would be nice… instead, Distress Tolerance asks you to ride that emotion more effectively, and not make the feeling worse.
Other behavioural goals can be:
Distress Tolerance asks clients to build a Distress Tolerance Toolkit – i.e., a set of skills that include self-soothing, distraction, connecting with others, and mindfulness. Again, we’d hope these tools reduce the intensity of your feelings; but more importantly, we’d hope they lead to you tolerating your distress without engaging in life-worsening behaviour.
There are lots of methods and strategies DBT uses in their Distress Tolerance framework – many of them are available for free from the Dialectical Behavior Therapy distress tolerance page.
If you need support right now
If this is an emergency, call 000. For 24-hour support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or text 0477 13 11 14. DirectLine, the Victorian alcohol and drug counselling service, is available on 1800 888 236. More options are on our resources page.
Our Blog Author
This post was written by Patrick Carey, Clinical Psychologist at Your Mind Matters. Paddy works with adults presenting with anxiety and mood disorders, trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorders, substance and gambling issues, psychosis spectrum disorders, and grief and loss, and is trained in CBT, ACT, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Metacognitive Training and mindfulness approaches. Meet our team.
People can be scared of many different things, such as dogs, aeroplanes, needles or insects. And the degree to which we’re fearful of these things can also vary. For example, I personally am scared of birds (this is also known as ornithophobia). Yes, I know…terrifying. However, it’s a mild fear, as this does not stop me from walking through a park where I know birds will be present, or walking down the sidewalk when I see them on the footpath in front of me. I may not like it, but it doesn’t interfere with my life. Unfortunately, this may not be the case for everyone, because, as mentioned above, the degrees of fear can vary. Many individuals will go out of their way to avoid that which causes fear. Some may never go on a desired holiday, or see family interstate due to being frightened of flying. Others may avoid going outside in spring and summer due to their fear of bugs. In these circumstances, seeing a psychologist can be helpful, in order to help tackle this issue.
One way to do this, and my preferred way, is through systematic desensitisation. This involves gradual exposure to that which causes fear and discomfort. To start off, I work with my clients to develop a hierarchy, starting with what causes the least amount of fear, or anxiety, and building up to that which causes the most fear. It’s important that clients follow these steps in an environment that is safe and predictable. Let’s use fear of dogs as an example. Depending on the severity, step one may be just talking about dogs. Believe it or not, this alone can be enough to cause uneasy feelings for some. I ask my client to rate their anxiety level for step one (1-10). The idea is that the more the client is exposed to this step, they will become desensitised, leading to their self-rating to drop over time. Once the client is comfortable and essentially bored with this step, we then move onto step two. Step two may involve looking at pictures of dogs. For example, I would advise against going to a dog park to observe dogs there, as this is an unpredictable environment, as we cannot control or stop a dog from running up to the client, which could lead to more distress. Moving on, step three may involve looking at videos of dogs. Once again, the client would continue to rate their level of discomfort, and eventually, once this drops to an extremely comfortable level, we move on to the next step. Eventually, the aim and goal would be to have the client comfortably sitting in a room with the dog, and even interact with a dog.
In addition to a hierarchy, it is beneficial to work on breathing strategies in sessions as well. These help ease some of the discomfort within each step. Learning to challenge unhelpful and unrealistic thoughts via CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is also very helpful, as often, we overestimate the level of threat, and are more fearful of certain things than necessary.
If an individual has an animal-related fear, such as the above, it can be beneficial if the psychologist they are working with utilises animal-assisted therapy. Therapy dogs are generally quite well-trained and love people. Exposure to therapy animals is done in a safe and predictable environment, and it’s reassuring to know that the specific dog is friendly, and that the handler (in this case, the therapist), has an understanding of the client’s fear, and can work with the client in a manner in which they are comfortable. As opposed to attempting to interact with a dog at a dog park, or on the street, which is less predictable. However, it is important to ensure that the psychologist and therapy animal you choose to work with are suitable for your own level of fear, as some dogs can be more excitable than others and may not be suitable for someone who has trouble even being in the same room as a dog.
Luna in her therapy dog vest.
If you think working with a psychologist would help you tackle your fear, give us a call to find a psychologist that is suitable for you. Please note that Johana is able to assist with clients who have a moderate fear of dogs, as Luna is an excitable dog.
Our Blog Author
This post was written by Johana Xanthopoulos, Clinical Psychologist at Your Mind Matters. Johana works with children and adolescents, with particular experience in autism, anxiety and depression, and has completed Animal Assisted Therapy training with her dog Luna. She is fluent in English and Greek. Meet our team.
CBT is an intervention that takes a practical, task based approach to solving problems. The focus of CBT is to address symptoms while they are present and to learn skills and techniques that can be used in the ongoing improvement of mental health. It is a psycho-educational approach that teaches clients to apply methods and techniques and effectively become their own therapists by understanding and managing their thinking (cognitive), feelings (emotions), and actions (behaviour).
The aim is to assess the negative thoughts a person is having about themselves, and their view of the world, and to replace them with more positive and constructive thoughts and behaviours. By addressing the thoughts and behaviours which contribute to the development and maintenance of problems, CBT seeks to offer a holistic approach to mental health care.
One of the reasons CBT is so well-known and widely used is because it has been studied so extensively. It is known to be an evidence-based technique that aims to produce clear, measurable changes in thoughts and behaviours. CBT can be used for a variety of undiagnosed or diagnosed conditions such as phobias, anxiety, depression, trauma, self-esteem issues, and ADHD, to relational problems like poor communication.
Cognitive behaviour therapy is suitable for people looking for a short-term treatment option for certain types of emotional distress that does not necessarily involve pharmacological intervention. CBT is often best suited for clients who are more comfortable with a structured and focused approach in which the therapist often takes an instructional role. One of the greatest benefits of cognitive behaviour therapy is that it helps clients develop coping skills that can be useful both now and in the future. However, for CBT to be effective, the individual must be ready and willing to spend time and effort analysing his or her thoughts and feelings. Such self-analysis and homework can be difficult, but it is a great way to learn more about how internal states impact outward behaviour.
If you are going through difficulties and need support, why not give us a call today? Our team of highly skilled and well-experienced Psychologists are here to help.
Beck, A. T. (1967). Depression: Causes and treatment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tolin DF. Is cognitive-behavioral therapy more effective than other therapies? A meta-analytic review. Clin Psychol Rev 2010;30:710–20.
Our Blog Author
This post was written by Aanchal Sood, Senior Psychologist and Supervisor at Your Mind Matters. Aanchal works with adolescents, adults and couples on anxiety and mood disorders, grief and loss, trauma, adjustment and relationship difficulties, and is fluent in Hindi and Punjabi. Meet our team.
