"Mental health conditions during pregnancy and early parenthood can affect anyone, and occur in every culture. Like depression or anxiety that occur at any other time, these mental health conditions don't have one definite cause - rather, they are likely to result from a combination of factors." Beyond Blue

Last weekend, while walking with my fabulous friend and her nine-year-old daughter, I was called in to "co-parent" (I love that my friend refers to me as that - such a privilege and so generous!). You see, for the first time in her life, little Miss Nine wanted to cut her very long and luscious, thick brown hair which virtually touches her bottom it's that long! The girls at school all have hair just below their shoulders and her mum worried that perhaps the only reason she wanted to cut her hair was to be like everyone else.

I have a very vivid memory from around five years of age playing with my sister and cousins in their caravan when someone had the bright idea of taking it in turns at being locked in the little bar fridge!

Praised for her warm rich tone, mezzo-soprano Dannielle O’Keefe, brings joy to audiences across a broad spectrum of music genres. A graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts and The Melbourne Conservatorium of Music at The University of Melbourne, Dannielle is dedicated to the art of performance and loves to inspire people through music. Not only that, but she is also a TimTam Slam loving mountain climber who has conquered base camp at Mount Everest, Macchu Picchu and Cotopaxi to name but a few. We're so blessed that Danni has also shared her talent for writing with us here at The Psychology of It. This is an article for everyone.

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Ever feel like you're on the outside looking in? Are you shy? Do you find yourself wanting to crawl inside your shell?

Anxiety as an emotion is as normal as a cycle on your washing machine. Our very survival depends on it, in fact. The sophisticated survival mechanisms in the brain have been around for 250 million years... so how does anxiety end up becoming disordered, as it has for around one in four of us?

Did you know that in 2012, Americans spent over $65 billion on home decor? According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average Australian spends $59 per week on household furnishings, $14 per week on audivisual equipment, and $13 per week on household appliances - that's $4,472 per year, per person. Clearly, our homes are important to us.

Have you ever driven home from a busy day at work, only to arrive not remembering much of what you saw on the drive home? Or have you stood at the fridge with the door open staring into unable to find what you're looking for despite it being right in front of you? This article puts the complex processes involved in focussing our attention into easy-to-understand terms.

Welcome to the first article in a series of three related to understanding and managing chronic pain. This article is written by guest writer and physiotherapist, Adrian Benson. Look for the second article in the Analyse This category, titled A New Way to Explain Pain - The One by the Psychologist, and the third in the Up Close & Personal category, titled Moving Into the Moment.

One morning a few weeks ago as I ate my breakfast in front of The Today show, a story about the investigations of the Royal Commission into Childhood Sexual Abuse and the responses of the Catholic Church came on.