APS College of Health Psychologists

03/10/2026

Dear everyone, come and join us next Tuesday 12pm- facilitates by Dr Rosemary Higgins:)

08/09/2026

September is Sexual Health Awareness Month, and today we went somewhere that healthcare has been too slow to go.

At our monthly peer supervision session, we talked about pelvic pain and sexual health. Not as a niche specialty topic. As something that affects 1 in 9 women, carries an average diagnostic delay of 6.6 years, and lands in our consulting rooms far more often than we might realise.

For too long, psychology has been called in only after every other door has closed - the implicit message being that if the tissue looks normal, the pain isn't real. Today we challenged that directly. The pain is real. It is neurological. And we belong at the table from day one.

What moved me most was not the evidence we reviewed. It was the moment the room stopped being a professional development session and became something more honest: clinicians sharing the weight of cases where dismissal had done real harm, and asking hard questions about what the research can and cannot offer the people in front of us.

That is the kind of reflection that changes practice.

Thank you to everyone who showed up so fully today!

📅 Next month: POTS - see you then.

04/09/2026

Pelvic pain is more than a physical health problem.

Conditions such as endometriosis, vulvodynia and genito-pelvic pain can profoundly affect sexual wellbeing, relationships, identity and quality of life. Yet the psychological dimensions of pelvic pain and sexual health remain under-recognised — and many women experience significant barriers to receiving appropriate, validating care.

Our September APS College of Health Psychologists (Vic) peer supervision session will explore the psychology of pelvic pain through a biopsychosocial lens.

We’ll discuss:

• Psychological processes including catastrophising, hypervigilance, fear-avoidance and pain-related anxiety
• The emerging evidence for CBT, MBCT, ACT and pain science education
• Barriers to accessing psychological care for pelvic and sexual health
• How psychologists can provide care that is attuned, validating and effective
• The importance of multidisciplinary approaches to complex pelvic pain

Whether you work with clients experiencing endometriosis, vulvodynia or chronic pelvic pain, or simply want to strengthen your understanding of this important and often stigmatised area, this session offers an opportunity to reflect, share and learn with colleagues.

📅 September peer supervision
🕛 12:00–1:00 PM AEST
💻 Zoom
🆓 Open to psychologists and health professionals

👉 Register here: https://psychology.org.au/event/25782

Already registered? Check your inbox for our pre-reading article. A quick scan of the abstract and discussion will be enough to help you join the conversation.

01/09/2026

Calling all APS-CHP members across Australia!

Our National AGM is on Thursday 3 September 2026 at 6:00 PM AEST - and you can join from wherever you are!

Don't miss guest speaker Anna Vigano on stress management interventions in cancer care.
In person: Rendezvous Hotel, Melbourne
Online: Zoom link available upon RSVP
RSVP: https://forms.gle/psnreyBHo72kgvjA8

Your voice matters - see you there!

17/08/2026

Calling all APS-CHP members across Australia!

Our National AGM is on Thursday 3 September 2026 at 6:00 PM AEST - and you can join from wherever you are!

Don't miss guest speaker Anna Vigano on stress management interventions in cancer care.

In person: Rendezvous Hotel, Melbourne
Online: Zoom link available upon RSVP

RSVP: https://forms.gle/psnreyBHo72kgvjA8
(Previous Minutes attached)

Your voice matters - see you there!

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11/08/2026

What happens when the machine is the therapy - and the therapy enables the machine?

Today's APS College of Health Psychologists peer supervision session tackled one of the most clinically vexing intersections I know: obstructive sleep apnoea and mental health.

What struck me most was how quickly our group moved from "interesting neurobiology" to "this is sitting in my caseload right now." Treatment-resistant depression that isn't responding. Cognitive fog that looks like ADHD. Panic symptoms that might not be panic disorder. For so many of us, OSA had been hiding in plain sight.

We explored a recent network analysis (Luo et al., 2025, BMC Psychiatry) that reframes the question entirely, not "does OSA cause depression?" but "which symptoms are driving the whole network, and where should we intervene?" The answer: sudden feelings of panic, psychomotor slowing, and anhedonia. Three nodes. One leverage triangle.

The conversation that stayed with me was around CPAP non-adherence. We so easily frame it as resistance or stubbornness, but for someone whose central symptom is sudden panic, putting on a mask that mimics suffocation is not non-compliance. It is an active trauma response. And that is squarely in our lane.

As always, our colleagues brought the richest insights - from real clinical cases, lived experience, and genuine reflective curiosity. That is what makes this group so special.

Thank you to everyone who joined, shared, and sat with the complexity.

📅 Next month: Sexual Health
🆓 Open to all psychologists and health professionals

📧 [email protected]

03/08/2026

🧠💤 When You Can't Sleep AND You Can't Cope - Understanding the Obstructive Sleep Apnoea–Mental Health Connection

📬 Members - check your inbox! Your pre-reading and reflective questions for our August peer supervision session have been sent.

This month we're diving into the fascinating intersection of obstructive sleep apnoea and mental health - exploring how panic, psychomotor slowing, and daytime dysfunction may be driving the link between OSA, depression, and anxiety in ways we haven't fully appreciated before.

📅 2nd Tuesday of August | 12:00 – 1:00 PM | 💻 Zoom
🆓 Open to all psychologists and health professionals

👉 Register here: https://psychology.org.au/event/25782

Not on our mailing list yet? Drop us a message to join!
📧 [email protected]

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20/07/2026

Reflecting on this month’s APS College of Health Psychologists peer supervision session - Disability Awareness and Implicit Bias

A thought-provoking discussion in this month’s session on the hidden attitudes many Australians hold towards people with disability - and what that means for our clinical practice.

The research was confronting: over 80% of participants implicitly stereotype people with disability as incompetent, and nearly 75% as cold. Perhaps most humbling was the finding that education, experience, and professional background made little difference. As psychologists, we like to think we're immune - but the evidence suggests otherwise.

What stayed with us was the power of reflective practice: not hiding our biases, but naming them, sitting with them, and letting that awareness shape how we show up for our clients.

Thank you to Diane for facilitating such an open and honest conversation.

📅 Next session: Sleep Apnea - see you then!

10/07/2026

Hello everyone! This month's topic for our reflection is "Disability Awareness in Psychology: Core Principles, Psychological Impacts, and Considerations." Please check your email for our study article. We look forward to sharing time with you at noon next Tuesday! :)

10/06/2026

Bowel Cancer Screening & the Health Belief Model - APS College of Health Psychologists:

Fascinating peer supervision session this morning with Dr Rosemary Higgins! We unpacked why less than half of eligible Australians skip a free test with a 99% Stage I survival rate - and discovered that psychologists are just as susceptible to the barriers we study. 😄

The standout moment? Discussing the "severity paradox" - the counterintuitive finding that higher perceived threat can actually reduce screening, driven by fatalism, avoidance, and the sense that some threats are simply too big to face.

Rich, humbling, and real - as always. Thank you to all participants for sharing so openly!

📅 Next up: Disability Awareness - July