Medcast news and blog
2020, a year in review: Dr Genevieve Yates
We've asked some Community of Practice members to tell us about what 2020 has meant to them. Some things may surprise you...
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I first encountered the concept of alexithymia when I worked with people suffering from eating disorders. Many people experiencing eating disorders have great difficulty identifying and naming their own emotions.
The answer to that question definitely depends on who you ask. Let’s start with the cynics and get them out of the way.
COVID and all its attendant inconveniences (I guess some would say “tortures”) has forced many of us to revise our personal wellbeing plans and dig out some old strategies that we haven’t used for a while. It’s also made some of us realise that many of the things that we thought were just parts of our normal life were, in fact, wellness strategies.
My patients are loving telehealth. They love it so much that most of them are saying they don’t want to come back to face to face consultations. You probably need to bear in mind that my patients are long-term therapy patients that I know very well.
Is Acadia running your life right now? Are you, like the solitary monks who used that term in the middle ages, suffering from the combination of boredom, frustration, agitation and lethargy that comes with physical isolation?
Like me, you probably spend a lot of time talking to people about how they feel about the COVID 19 pandemic, but do you talk to them about their thoughts and beliefs about it?
Suicide in Australia amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples occur at twice the rate of the general population. Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are at even greater risk, those aged 5 to 17 years, suicide is the leading cause of death for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
Right now, most of us are a bit upset in one way or another. Some of us are very upset. Stress, frustration, grief, anxiety, sadness, isolation, loneliness, worry about the present, worry about the future – all these things are rising to the surface in a world that’s being held to ransom by COVID 19.
At 65 and a half (yes, it’s come to that. I’m actually counting the months again!) I find myself reluctantly looking down the barrel of a shotgun labelled “old age”. It’s OK, don’t panic – I’m not unwell. It’s just that my body hurts and people keep asking me when I am going to retire. What is that!
