Signposts for Living with Dr Kirsten Hunter

Sam has his finger on the people side of real estate, and yes, he's my beautiful brother. While Sam is passionate about real estate, it's the people side that drives him, and where he has built his name. Sam has just moved back from the UK where he established himself as having the knack for understanding the psychology of real estate. In his travels, he with colleagues, set up UK based...

Oh my gosh... if there was a common relationship gripe, this is it. I don't want to be gender based, but this really is a gender pattern that I see in session all the time. Kristen and I enjoyed pulling this age-old relationship dilemma apart. Can you relate? Are you just wanting your partner to listen and show they understand? Or are you going crazy wanting to just jump in and fix the proble...

State of flow is about doing things that expand your life, it's about feeling day to day contentment and feeling energised rather than drained. This is a topic, a life skill that you really need to master. Mental Health Support Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mentalhealtheachother Our monthly Psychology newsletter - https://kirstenhunterauthor.com/newsletter/ Mental Health and Psychol...

This podcast took my dear friend and co-presenter Kristen, by surprise. Self-efficacy is a term that we don't often use, but it is a key ingredient for being able to approach our life challenges with confidence and gusto! Find out more about what it is, and check in with yourself with how you are traveling with your levels of self-efficacy - a true gift to yourself. Mental Health Support Grou...

Podcast: The Psychology of Songwriting. Special Guest - Mr Ben Beamish.   We are very fortunate to be joined today by Ben Beamish, also known as 'Sleepy Benjamin'. Ben is a performer, songwriter and producer. He is known for igniting is audience with his enthusiasm when on stage whether it be a concert, festival, or private gig. We put our heads together during this podcast and talked th...

Podcast: Rushing Woman Syndrome. Special Guest: Naturopath Taylah Teschner Have you heard of this concept? Maybe not... but we have all heard of the busy busy modern woman who is trying to do it all. Taylah is passionate and eloquent as she talks us through her naturopathic work in this area. I really relate to how frequently we find  ourselves rushing around, with unrelenting pressure to do it al...

Podcast: Post-natal Depression - Why do we feel ashamed? Co-presenter Kristen Coggan When clients say they had or have Post-natal Depression, they almost whisper it. We feel that we have failed in some way, we are inadequate, our hopes of post baby bliss are dashed. But hey, we are not choosing to be depressed and emotionally lost at this time, so why are we so quick to blame ourselves? Why do we...

Relationships; keep your own identity. It can be a tricky thing, to work in with your partner, to merge your worlds, to compromise as needed... but to stay true to yourself. So many clients struggle with this area. I think it's valuable to take a moment to check in on this challenging relationship challenge. Mental Health Support Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/mentalhealtheachother O...

The difference between Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder. Co-presenter Kristen Coggan. Okay, so these conditions are regularly confused. So let's tease them apart once and for all. Borderline Personality Disorder can also be pretty tricky to get our heads around, so I'm eager for this opportunity to flesh this out a little. Thanks again Kristen, I just love our energy...

Girls; walking them through their teenage years - perfection, judgement, silence, mean girls and survival. Special Guest: Mia Patterson Mia Patterson, the gifted and passionate wizard with children and teenagers, returns for this next edition. As an experienced educator she is passionate about building up teenagers and helping to guide and strengthen them through their often challenging and turbul...

We adults can get too serious and too responsible in life and forget to tap into our creative side. But creativity is actually a key ingredient for our mental health, and our ability to keep expanding and developing. It's about  self expression. It's about being in the moment. Creativity is linked with our ability to cope with stress, to recharge and to ground ourselves. Let's have...

Margie battled with her husband changing to a person she didn't marry, the process of learning about Alzheimer's Disease, creatively adjusting to the new challenges in daily life, and ultimately dealing with his death. Margie is a clever and frank person. I appreciate her big hearted intention of wanting to help others with this podcast. She hopes this can be a supportive resource for ot...

We are anxious for our children to find their way in their future with their chosen career path. But what if in our good intentions we shape them to follow our interests, our career preferences, and our comfort zone. This is a really interesting area to take a moment to reflect on. How many of us adults have had our job areas mapped out by our parent's career presumptions and at some point fe...

'GRIT SUPERHERO' is the 2nd of the 4 books in the SQUISH child psychology book series. This book strangely celebrates our hard times in that we can end up strengthened... we can learn GRIT. If children can learn this concept they can find meaning and morale in their hard times. This is a concept that all of our children can benefit from. I certainly wish I had learnt it as a child. Jump...

Michelle is a beautiful grounded person who on our first meeting was a brittle shadow of herself. Many many years later, Michelle is open to talk about her extraordinary story of survival, and how she and her boys have come to thrive in the aftermath. As we spoke, more of the story came out that I think we had both not earlier understood. It's pretty extraordinary to have this level of realis...

We all feel like outsiders at some point, perhaps often. This book takes your child by the hand and helps them learn to flip this experience and actually find connection through being different. We are all in fact outsiders. It's a great to feel less alone in our struggles. 'I am an outsider' does just that. How wonderful to help our children cope with these social struggles and ski...

I always thought that 'Free Will' was a concept that related to religion. I was wrong. Emma Chalmers brings philosophy to life as she very patiently explains to me what the concept of Free Will actually is, whether we have it, and what this means in our day to day life, and our moment to moment decisions. It's a bit confronting really to think that we might not have as much control...

It's so sad, my child clients as young as 6 years old have come into session with insecurities about their bodies. The self talk statements 'I'm fat' start very young and parents don't know what to do. How do I help my child? How do I steer my child away from this toxic body image script that reeks through our society. Here are some ideas of what we do in session to combat...

Wouldn't it be great if we worked out how our thoughts and our feelings worked in childhood, rather then leaving it to adulthood. Wouldn't it be great to help our kids through their tough times and through their inevitable insecurities. 'My Thoughts are Trash or Treasure' goes into the child's world to help skill them up with this profound life skill in a gentle and relata...

Perspective taking is the foundation of relationships. If you are not great at getting into other people's heads, how do you understand them? How do you be sensitive to their experiences and their needs. These are core ingredients to having a deep understanding of others, deeper connections and working through conflict areas. Listen in... where do you sit with this critical skillset? How does...

Dr Bryan has one of those brains that I want to dive into and swim around in. And today I got to do just that! Today we talked through what we mean when we say 'trauma', and whether we are helping ourselves or not. This is a highly personal and therefore controversial topic. We are shaped enormously by events that we have lived through, but how do we relate to them, what role do we give...

The SQUISH series was written with a lot of love and creativity to bring advanced psychological skills to children. There are 4 books in the series, each with the gorgeous (often gently confronting) illustrations from the talented Emma Moorman. Kristen and I talk through the 4 titles, 'You are Gold', 'My Thoughts are Trash or Treasure', 'Grit Superhero', and 'I a...

We all have negative thoughts; they can make or break our mood and our day. But what about our negative thoughts that are not rational and are self-sabotaging, the thoughts were we persistently bully ourselves. Dealing with our negative thoughts is core to psychology. I thought it would be helpful to take a moment to talk through some psychological skills here that can help all of us. Join me. Men...

Bernie is passionate about our veterans  feeling not only valued, but their skillsets and their time not going to waste. Bernie Baz is a local businessman from Toowoomba QLD, who was once a military man himself and understands the comradery of the military and then how people can feel lost post military service. I applaud Bernie for his valuing of veteran's mental health and his zestful advoc...

This book 'Nailing being an Adult' is one of those books that we can all relate to.  This is about making life easier and smoother for you through learning some great psychology tricks of the trade. This is not common sense, we need the helping hand from somewhere. Here it is. Kristen and I chew the fat as we always do, talking through what is covered in this final book in the 6 part SIG...