Resources

Educating yourself psychologically can facilitate your own repair and recovery process. 
​The following materials may therefore be of interest:

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Some resources and offerings that might be of help.  Additional resources will be added over time...so please come back again soon...

For Workplaces

1. Read my own and others' advice on reconnecting with colleagues for the festive season in an article featured in both The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.
   

For Children and Parents

1. Tips for coping with coronavirus anxiety, including talking about it with children.
2. COVIBOOK, a PDF book aimed at helping children under the age of 7 years, to understand what is happening.  It is available in 21 languages.
3. Get help engaging your kids (or even you) to exercise indoors by tuning in each day to P.E. with Joe on his Body Coach TV channel on YouTube.  Read more about what it's been like to join in with this online kids exercise sensation here.
4. Sharing custody is hard enough without coronavirus. Here are some tips for co-parenting right now from ABC News.
5. Here you'll find extensive resources related to children and parenting during COVID-19.

For Adults and Relationships

1. How to make birthdays meaningful during a pandemic.
   
2. How journaling can help you in hard times.
   
3. Podcasts to consider while stuck at home.
   
4. Here psychologists talk about loneliness and isolation during COVID-19.
5. These podcasts will help you escape the news while you're stuck at home.
6. From Gottman's Blog - Keeping it Together While Social Distancing.
7. Here are 24 dates you can try out at home.
8. Consider these six daily questions to ask yourself in quarantine.
9. Maintain perspective by doing Dr. Martin Seligman's Three Blessings Exercise.  This exercise has been scientifically shown to bring significantly improved positive perspective into people's lives as quickly as within one week of starting the practice.  Look here to understand how to judge if it is working for you.
10. Here are seven tips to make working from home easier.
11. Bring positive structure to your life in changing times: The Happiness Calendar.
12. Take a moment to better understand intrusive thoughts.
13. Here are three of the best ways to manage anxiety.
14. Take an online meditation class with Tara Brach (USA).
15. Although The Met Opera in New York has closed, it hopes to brighten the lives of its audience members even while its stage is dark.  Every day for the duration of the Met’s closure, a different encore presentation from the company’s Live in HD series will be made available for free streaming.  For more information, click here.

For Families

1. Set up a daily family ritual of doing something together while keeping your brains active at the same time, by completing the seven free quizzes offered by The New Daily.  They are great fun!

For Others

1. Use this calling card to offer help to your neighbours, particularly those who are elderly or otherwise might benefit from a helping hand or just a chat (at least 1.5m apart, of course!).

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Self-Help Resources

Read

Just Add Coffee

Watch

 Romantic Relationships

1. The Gottman Relationship Blog - lots of good information to help couples improve their relationships.
2. Dr. John Gottman talking about his ideas on Making Relationships Work.  Here he talks about his model, The Sound Relationship House, which describes the elements present in couples he refers to as relationship 'masters' and absent in couples he refers to as relationship 'disasters.'  This recorded presentation is in four, 10 minute parts.  The link here takes you to the first part and you will find the three parts that follow shown to the right of the YouTube player.
   
3. To say 'Sorry' is not enough when apologising.
   
4. How well do you know your partner?  Take Gottman's quiz to find out.

Intimacy and Sex

1. The Six-Second Kiss - from the Gottman Relationship Blog
2. Sandra Pertot's articles about libido and intimacy difficulties.
3. Barry McCarthy's ideas about couple sex styles - which style is right for you and your partner?

Creating Calm and Positivity

1. Dr. Martin Seligman, the father of Positive Psychology, talking about his Three Blessings Exercise and separately, how to know if it is working.
2. Trauma and the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective - YouTube Clip.  This is an excellent, basic introduction and overview of how trauma and chronic stress affects our nervous system and how those effects impact our health and well-being.  Much of the content is based on the groundbreaking work of Stephen Porges and his Polyvagal Theory.  To learn more about trauma recovery and nervous system health resources, please visit The Trauma Foundation (www.thetraumafoundation.org), the Polyvagal Institute (www.polyvagalinstitute.org), or Dan Dana's website https://www.rhythmofregulation.com.
   

EMDR

1. What is EMDR and can it help?
2. A video that shows how EMDR works.