13/03/2023

Helping People Overcome Emotional Distress: The Power Threat Meaning Framework

After nearly twenty years working as a neuroscientist, I closed down my university research laboratory at the beginning of the millennium. I no longer believe in the biomedical approach to helping people overcome addiction and mental health problems. I believe that long-term use of psychiatric drugs causes more […]
07/03/2023

‘The Connected Community: Discovering the Health, Wealth, and Power of Neighborhoods’ by Cormac Russell and John McKnight

The most common approach to ‘helping’ communities has involved focusing on the community’s needs, deficiencies, and problems. This depersonalising approach disempowers and often causes other forms of harm to community citizens. The alternative path to community development, Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), focuses on a community’s assets, capacities, and abilities. Significant community […]
28/02/2023

‘What Happened? What Mental Health is Really About’: Bill Saunders

Here is the Forward of a book written by Perth Clinical Psychologist Bill Saunders, What Happened? What Mental Health is Really About. This is a really important book, essential reading for anyone interested in mental health or psychological wellbeing. I agree with all of Bill’s statements below about […]
16/02/2023

Recovery Storytelling – A Powerful Tool for Advocacy: Meghann Perry

I’ve recently been posting on my Recovery Stories website about an inspirational woman and her fascinating recovery storytelling initiative. In 2009, Meghann Perry ‘was in jail, facing a 5-year prison sentence for selling crack, after decades of profound chaotic substance use and everything that comes with it.’ In […]
09/02/2023

Three Things to Know About Mental Health and Trauma

I just love the film clip below from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health that involves Dr. Bruce Perry talking about mental health and trauma. Here are the three major things that Bruce points out: Trauma sharing is a way for storytellers, not experts, to lead the conversation. Storytellers […]
06/02/2023

Stories on My Recovery Stories Website Now Updated

In 2013, I posted 14 Addiction Recovery Stories on my Recovery Stories website.  Some of these Stories were written by the person, whilst others I wrote after interviewing the person (or people) on a number of occasions. In these latter cases, stories went back and forth across the […]
23/01/2023

‘Telling our stories in ways that make us stronger’ by Barb Wingard and Jane Lester

This blog post is an extract from the book Telling our stories in ways that make us stronger by Barb Wingard and Jane Lester (Dulwich Centre Publications, 2001). The original extract can be found here.  [Please note that I broken up some of the long paragraphs in the original […]
09/01/2023

Suzanne Dredge’s Healing Story

I recently read an amazing story on the ABC website that I felt I had to publish on The Carrolup Story. The article ABC journalist Suzanne Dredge shares her story of overcoming adversity to become the first Head of Indigenous News focuses on a remarkable Wiradjuri woman, Suzanne Dredge. […]
29/12/2022

A Year of The Carrolup Story (2022), Part 2

Last week, I posted a blog about the content John and I have posted in 2022 on The Carrolup Story blog relating to the story of the Aboriginal child artists of Carrolup. I’ve also been posting on our Healing blog, posts related to trauma, healing, addiction, and related […]
27/12/2022

‘Healing is in Our Stories’ by Deron Drumm RIP

Here’s an excellent article by the late Deron Drumm about the importance of Stories in helping people recover and change the mental health system which appeared on Mad in America in 2014. ‘”It’s important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your […]
21/11/2022

The Politics of Personal Distress

A couple of months ago I came across an excellent article in the Guardian newspaper by UK clinical psychologist Sanah Ahsan entitled ‘I’m a psychologist – and I believe we’ve been told devastating lies about mental health’. The article is well worth reading. It is important to note […]
14/11/2022

‘The Myth of Normal’ by Gabor Maté

Whilst in the UK recently, I bought a hardback copy of Gabor Maté’s thought-provoking new book The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. Yes, today’s Western society capitalist culture is toxic, according to one of the world’s leading trauma experts. Here is what […]
09/11/2022

Step Inside the Circle

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the long period of time since my last post on the website. I was away for nearly eight weeks visiting family and friends in Europe. Since getting back, I’ve been catching up on a number of things, as well as working on […]
18/07/2022

Film Clips of My Conversation With Huseyin Djemil About Addiction Recovery

Last year, I was interviewed by Huseyin Djemil of Towards Recovery for his ‘Journeys’ podcast. I was really pleased to be Huseyin’s first interviewee for his podcast, as I hold him and his initiative in high regard. It was also really nice to talk to him again, the […]
10/04/2022

Michael’s 44th Sober Anniversary, and an Update

My good friend Michael (Mike) Scott from Perth, Western Australia, last had a drink of alcohol 44 years (16,060 days) ago today. This morning, I’m going to celebrate his achievement with a blog post. Mike first contacted me about our Daily Dose website back in 2002 when I […]