Therapy is just one tool in your toolbox:

In challenging times “talk therapy” can help, but there are lots of ways to support positive change. Meditation, good quality self-help and informative books, learning and practicing grounding skills, exercise, and social connection are all evidence-based and powerful examples of useful, accessible and low cost (or free) supports that can scaffold better mental health for the long term.

Although either myself or my clients have found these resources useful, please always take them with a grain of salt! What works for one person is not right for everyone, and the best teachers and organisers do sometimes get things wrong. If in doubt take some time out to decide if the resource is right for you!

Part one: generally great books, podcasts and websites.

Part two: Resources for ADHD and Autistic folks (or those exploring neurodivergence).

Part three: Organisations that can help support you and your loved ones.

Books

August Lamm’s You Don’t Need a Smartphone is a mind-expanding argument for why you might want to throw out your phone, as well as being a great resource for thinking about how to break your devices hold on your dopamine, concentration, and self worth. With loads of tips about how to work around the issues you’ll encounter when putting down the black-mirror this is 100% worth the measly $12 Australian bucks I paid for a digital download. With any luck the original Riso-printed zine will become available again at some time in the future, but for now an instant download is a good start. If you need any convincing that you could do with less time on your device, here’s some recent research demonstrating that smartphones make us anxious, stressed, insomniac, and depressed, and that the more we use them, the more miserable we become. If you’re an ADHDer putting down your smartphone might be one of the hardest but most useful things you will ever do for your dopamine system.

Not a book but a great related resource: Dumbphone Finder is a filterable and up to date list of available modern dumbphones and their features.

Faith Harper’s sweary mini-guides on everything from how to make boundaries to evidence based strategies to support people with anxiety or depression.

These books are wonderful and although some will find the general language can be cringey these remain the hands-down most useful books I’ve found for everything from developing everyday coping skills to how to manage anger skillfully. Packed with actual strategies (such as using the BIFF technique for dealing with high conflict personalities) and evidence-based information, these tiny and affordable titles work harder than you’d ever expect. Rather than recommend any single book, the above link goes directly to the Microcosm page (Dr Faith’s publisher) so anyone interested can have a browse. My most-used book? Unf*ck Your Boundaries.

Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab

Boundaries. What even are they? This is a readable and practical primer to help you understand your own boundaries, how to make and keep them, and what to do in the face of roadblocks. I recommend this book often.

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge – Definitive hope that your brain is not broken and that change is not only possible, but achievable.

From the publisher’s website: ‘Only a few decades ago, scientists considered the brain to be fixed or ‘hardwired’ and considered most forms of brain damage, therefore, to be incurable. Dr. Doidge, an eminent psychiatrist and researcher, was struck by how his patients’ own transformations belied this and set out to explore the new science of neuroplasticity by interviewing both scientific pioneers in neuroscience, and patients who have benefited from neuro-rehabilitation. Here he describes in fascinating personal narratives how the brain, far from being fixed, has remarkable powers of changing its own structure and compensating for even the most challenging neurological conditions. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.’ – OLIVER SACKS

Living Sensationally by Winnie Dunn From the publisher: “How do you feel when you bite into a pear, wear a feather boa, stand in a noisy auditorium, or look for a friend in a crowd? It’s likely that one of these situations would be pleasant for you, and perhaps one would be unpleasant. Some people will adore the grainy texture of a pear, while others will shudder at the idea of this texture in their mouths. Touching a feather boa will be fun and luxurious to some, and others will bristle at the idea of all those feathers brushing on the skin. Noisy, busy environments will energize some people, and will overwhelm others. These different reactions reflect people’s individual sensory patterns, which in turn affect the way we react to everything that happens to us throughout the day. The author helps readers to find their own patterns and the patterns of those around them, and then offers suggestions for harnessing this knowledge to make their lives more in synch with their sensations.Living Sensationally provides practical sensory ideas for individuals, families and businesses. Armed with the information in Living Sensationally, people will be able to pick just the right kind of clothing, job and home and know why they are making such choices.”

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk. – NOTE: though The Body Keeps the Score changed the game for the public understanding of trauma, its impacts and effective treatment, it’s also become controversial regarding the way that Van Der Kolk mis-represented research, as well as for his deeply pessimistic approach to PTSD, his individualistic point of view – which ignores the impacts of systemic inequality on vulnerability to and recovery from PTSD, and the way that it positions survivors in a deeply individualistic and pessimistic perspective. Reading The Body Keeps the Score can be enlightening in many ways, but read it with a pinch of salt. For a more grounded and optimistic perspective I’d actually recommend What Happened to You – see below 🙂

What Happened to You by Dr Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey – A gentler, more hopeful and MUCH more accessible book that The Body Keeps the Score, with simple information about what trauma is, how it changes your brain and body, and hopeful guidance to healing. Oprah Winfrey is “co-authour” but if Oprah isn’t your cup of tea it’s worth trying to overlook her name on the cover – my sense is she has lent her name to Dr Bruce Perry’s book in the hope it will reach more people. This is my go-to recommendation for people looking to begin recovery from trauma or complex trauma.

Waking the Tiger: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences by Peter A. Levine.

Waking the Tiger is the foundational text for Somatic Experiencing, a treatment modality for trauma and overwhelming experiences that the body holds on to when the mind can’t find a way to make sense of or ‘process’ them. Levine’s book offers examples, theories and exercises that can be very helpful for anyone struggling to understand how to help themselves move past traumatic experience. Empowering, intuitive, gentle and informative.

Come As You Are by Emily Nagosi is by FAR the book I recommend the most. The writing is so clear, the science so well explained, and the insights so helpful, that I would seriously recommend anyone having issues with intimacy start here before even booking a session with a counselling sexologist (which is also an awesome plan).

Here’s the publisher’s blurb: For much of the 20th and 21st centuries, women’s sexuality was an uncharted territory in science, studied far less frequently—and far less seriously—than its male counterpart.

That is, until Emily Nagoski’s Come As You Are, which used groundbreaking science and research to prove that the most important factor in creating and sustaining a sex life filled with confidence and joy is not what the parts are or how they’re organized but how you feel about them. In the years since the book’s initial publication, countless women have learned through Nagoski’s accessible and informative guide that things like stress, mood, trust, and body image are not peripheral factors in a woman’s sexual wellbeing; they are central to it—and that even if you don’t always feel like it, you are already sexually whole by just being yourself. This revised and updated edition continues that mission with new information and advanced research, demystifying and decoding the science of sex so that everyone can create a better sex life and discover more pleasure than you ever thought possible.

Podcasts

Dharma Punx NYC – Josh Korda’s Meditation podcast.

Josh Korda’s absolutely stellar mash-up of neuroscience, psychology and down-to-earth take on Buddhist meditation is hands down my most used “self help” resource. Browse the list of episodes to listen to Josh expound on everything from how to ‘hack’ your neurotransmitters to using RAIN and acceptance meditations to process grief, loss and trauma. I fell in love with Josh’s teaching when I was searching for a meditation teacher that didn’t whisper or offer platitudes, and have kept listening for years because his take on mental health, meditation, recovery and spiritual life is so grounded and smart. If there’s something in your life you’re wanting to take some time to explore, I really recommend having a browse and a listen. Accessible, entertaining and often profound, Josh also acknowledges the limits and dangers of traditional meditation when it comes to mental health and takes care to incorporate safe practices into his podcasts and guided meditation.

This episode of The Blindboy Podcast

This radically kind and thought provoking podcast is a weekly, rambling, hot-take on anything from swingers and pampas grass to the postmodern/capitalist evolution of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In the episode I’ve linked to here, Blindboy (an Irish Satirist, musician, podcaster and authour) encapsulates how to care for yourself when you live with chronic anxiety and hypervigilance.

Apps

Not a great place for social connections, but excellent tools for exploring and practicing whatever it is that can help get you through.

Insight Timer. A free meditation app with a HUGE (and I mean huge) range of guided meditations, courses and talks. A highlight of this app is the built-in timer with a range of options to build your own little routine with intervals and bell sounds that suit you, but if you prefer a guided experience try starting with a big-name teacher such as Josh Korda or Tara Brach.

My most recommended insight track is Sensing Safety: Teachers and therapists will often ask you to imagine a time when you were completely safe. For many reasons this is actually quite a rare thing to be able to bring to mind. Kristen Doessel’s 4-minute meditation is reverse-engineeed to teach brains that don’t have a go-to safety memory just what safety feels like. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Ferly is an inclusive and friendly sexual health and pleasure app oriented toward women and designed by a bunch of sexologists, therapists, sex educators, and researchers to deliver actually effective and helpful short programs and TONS of info that is actually, genuinely useful and programs that are user friendly and well designed. These include navigating anxiety around sex, sex after trauma, and painful sex. A subscription to the app costs money, but at about $50 for a year (that’s a bit less than half a therapy session) it’s likely to be worth the money for many people.

Websites

Kristen Neff and Chris Germer’s Mindful Self Compassion Website

Self compassion is a construct drawn from various traditions of “loving kindness” and “compassion” meditation, and the reality of universal human suffering that these traditions embrace. Self Compassion practice focuses on exploring our hurt places and failings with the same kindness or acceptance we might offer someone we love when they fail. Neff and Germer’s Self Compassion practices are strongly evidence based and can profoundly transform our relationships to ourselves and others, especially when there are parts of our experience we can’t bear to face up to: such as regret, guilt, grief or shame.

There’s nothing wishy washy or soft about these resources, in fact I would always advise using a slow and steady pace when starting out, and with an acknowledgement that Self COmpassion practices can unlock really deep and difficult feelings – In fact it can be helpful to have a counselling session booked to talk through what comes up if you’re interested in using these and find tham confronting. Alternately, take these practices slowly and do a ton of processing* when you first dive in. All the practices on the Self Compassion website are safe and publicly available, but (as they say these days) an “abundance of caution” is my advice.

Research on self compassion practices indicate that they can be effective supports (when used with professional guidance and support) in circumstances as varying as experiences of hearing voices to caregiver burnout.

Also I just love them 🙂

*Writing in a journal, talking to a mate, swimming, running, dancing, making art – whatever it is you use to work through big feelings.

Support for family estrangement or navigating relationships with parents or siblings who are unwell or unwilling to change.

This Longreads reading list is an affirming and kind reminder that setting boundaries with family members can be heartbreaking, lonely, confusing, and liberating, and may offer some solace for folks who are feeling alone in their decision.

Together Estranged is a US organisation that provides information, online forums, and other supports for adult children who are estranged or are working through the decision to cut contact with family members.

Will I Ever be Good Enough is a helpful exploration of the impact of maternal narcissistic traits on daughters.

Stop Caretaking the Borderline or Narcissist: How to end the drama and get on with life – is a game changing (though frequently confronting) book exploring how to live safely when leaving a relationship isn’t possible or a choice you’re okay with. With concrete advice on communication, safety, as well as insight into the experience of those living with behavioural challenges and difficulty relating respectfully with others, this book has been a go-to resource for improving the core ‘difficult relationship’ for many clients.

Exploring an adult ADHD or Autism assessment, or have a new diagnosis?

The explosion in new peer-led research, writing, advocacy, and cultural production by Neurodivergent folks means there are suddenly a lot of really great resources for people whose adult ADHD or Autism assessments might have come as a bit of a surprise!

SPECIAL LINK: For those who have encountered the podcast the Telepathy Tapes, here’s a thoughtful article with a good critical analysis of the podcast’s claims.

Here are a select few resources:

Website: Embrace Autism – an extraordinary website with a HUGE range of screening tests for Autism and ADHD. All the screening tests on Embrace Autism can be auto-scored, and are thoroughly annotated and rated for accuracy, relevance, ambiguity and respectful language. You can also download a PDF of your results for your own records, or to take to your GP.

Comprehensive explanations of what your results mean make the site even more relevant. Some formal assessors (psychologists or psychiatrists) use Embrace Autism to do your pre-screening! So if you’re scoring off the charts on your CAT-Q or RAADS-R assessments, you’re getting the same kind of info a clinician will if they are assessing you.

Note that Embrace Autism screening tests are NOT formal assessments, but if you want a sense of whether making autism-oriented adjustments to your lifestyle or habits might improve your mental health, this is a good place to start.

Website: Neurodivergent Insights is the website of Dr Megan Anna Neff, a Psychologist with lived-experience of ADHD and Autism (or “AuDHD”) and a mum of Neurodivergent kids. The site and blog are comprehensive and accessible, specialising in affordable workbooks on topics such as Autistic and ADHD Burnout Recovery, Neurodivergence and Sleep, Emotion regulation and Alexithymia, as well as a wide variety of fillable worksheets and scheduling tools.

Website: Reframing Autism: An Australian “Autistic-led charity, reframing the understanding of Autism through education, resources and research, underpinned by our lived experience as Autistics.” The Autism Essentials course (on demand and free) is really wonderful – highly recommended to anyone with a new Autism assessment or for those who love or work with Autistic folks. Tons of professional development opportunities and accessible info pages – the lived-experience blogs are a highlight.

Book: Camouflage: The Hidden Lives of Autistic Women by Sarah Bargiela and Sophie Standing is a graphic novel about the ways gender affects Autism. Widely loved and frequently shared in “best of” lists.

Book: The Year I Met My Brain by Matilda Boseley: The “Atypical ADHD” resource we have all been waiting for. An engaging and clear mix of memoir, research, coaching, and resource suggestions that is frankly indispensable if you’re an adult with suspicions about your ADHD or in need of a primer after you’ve received formal confirmation of ADHD. The audiobook is read by the author and is friendly, warm and very bingeable.

Book: A Feminist’s Guide to ADHD by Janina Maschke

“ADHD affects women in unique ways. Discover how to deal with it – and how to thrive – in this empowering guide.” Includes useful info on: “the role of gender in understanding ADHD, the challenges of diagnosing women, the differences between the subtypes, the role of hormones in treating symptoms, common co-existing conditions, tools for thriving with ADHD.”

Book: Unmasking Autism by Devon Price (2022): This is a mixture of memoir, current research, ‘workbook’ style exercises, and social history. A strong contender for “most useful book” for high-masking Autistic folks, Dr Price’s book has spawned many book clubs, workshops and discussion boards.

Podcast: Spectrumly Speaking is a podcast “dedicated to women on the Autism spectrum”. Episodes cover a wide range of topics, from “Overcoming Barriers to Therapy Access” to masking, gender expresison and sexuality, links between autism and mental health conditions such as OCD, anxiety and depression, and community and social interaction.

If you want more of a narrative style exploration of a late-diagnosis from an AFAB perspective, try The Loudest Girl in the World by Pushkin journalist Lauren Ober.

Podcast: Divergent Conversations is the podcast of Dr Megan Neff and Patrick Casale – Two Neurodivergent therapists in conversation with intriguing professionals, advocates, academics, and creatives about the Neurodivergent experience of living in a Neurotypical world.

Podcast: The Square Peg podcast is a place where “Autistic women and nonbinary people share our stories” and features a huge range of guests with a focus on activism and advocacy and with TONS of tips for living well in a world not designed for you.

Other Mental Health and Wellbeing Services and Organisations:

The range of mental health challenges a person can face in their lifetime is very broad, and the stats indicate that:

  • One in five Australian adults experience a mental illness every year.
  • About 45 per cent of Australian adults will be affected by mental illness at some time in their life.

Demystifying mental illness makes the experience easier for everyone – and it’s important to note it’s perfectly possible to have a mental illness diagnosis AND be mentally healthy – strategies, connections, quality of life and your personal mental health toolbox are all important factors in what your lifelong mental health journey will look like.

So here are some useful organisations that provide services, workshops and ways to connect if you’re looking for a way to up-skill in your relationship with your own mental health.

Carer Gateway – “Carer Gateway is an Australian Government program providing free services and support for carers.” If you’re the carer or support person for someone with a disability of any kind, you may be eligible for short term financial aid, training opportunities, respite support, and access to peer groups and activities.

Voices Vic – The Australian provider of “Hearing Voices Network” programs including short-term one-on-one peer mentoring by trained Lived Experience Peer Support Workers, free peer support groups, education and training for both individuals and organisations, and a big list of resources and referrals for those who hear voices and their loved ones.

ARC Vic – the Anxiety Resource Centre of Victoria. Free resources, referrals, online peer group meetings, workshops, classes (such as mindfulness for anxiety), and information for a super wide range of anxiety experiences, including OCD, ptsd, social anxiety, postpartum experience, panic attacks, and everything in between.

Blue Knot Foundation – An education and advocacy organisation representing people who have experienced childhood trauma of any kind. Blue Knot provides educational seminars for survivors and professionals, an anonymous (and free) telephone counselling and referral service. If you’re learning about trauma or need someone to talk through your options with, absolutely give the counsellors at Blue Knot a call.

Wire: Women’s Information and Referral Exchange- “Free support, referrals and information on any issue for all Victorian women, nonbinary and gender diverse people.” If you’re not sure where to start on any issue from mental health to domestic violence or have a need for health care, WIRE is a good place to start. The workers are compassionate, knowledgeable and well trained, and they’re a great resource if you’re feeling stuck for a next step.

Centres Against Sexual Assault (CASA) – If you have experienced sexual assault, need information, referral or are in crisis following an assault, the trained, competent and compassionate folks at your local CASA will be able to help support your next moves, whatever YOU decide you would like them to be. The CASA crisis line number is 1800 806 292

Transgender Victoria “Victoria’s leading body for transgender and gender diverse people.

We are trans-led, working for, by and with trans communities to achieve better social, economic and health outcomes. We represent trans communities by fostering connection, advocating for change and supporting trans people to lead full and meaningful lives.”

Resources, training, support and referral for gender diverse victorians.

Queerspace is a community led organisation with a vast array of services for LGBTQI Melburnians. “Queerspace is an LGBTIQ+ health and wellbeing support service established in 2009 by LGBTIQ+ communities for LGBTIQ+ communities. Queerspace has a focus on relationships, families, parenting and young people and offers co-located services across the north-west metropolitan region of Victoria.”

Mensline is a go-to resource for folks who identify as men, offering a helpline, on-demand counselling and a bunch of other resources such as referral to peer group, mental health support, and recovery programs, as well as helpful reading.