Most people lie sometimes. Not because they are pathological liars, but because the truth can simply feel too difficult to face.

Sometimes we lie because we cannot bear the reality of our situation. Sometimes telling the truth feels unsafe. And sometimes there is simply too much discomfort between who we want to be and who we fear we really are.

For some people, control and perfectionism become ways of managing that discomfort. If mistakes once brought criticism, rejection or danger, hiding them can feel safer than admitting them.

Research increasingly links childhood adversity with difficulties regulating emotions, perfectionism and difficulties in adult relationships. Research also shows that everyday lying can affect self-esteem and social connection, even when the lies are not discovered.

The problem is that self-protection can become a prison. Small lies require more lies. Authentic relationships become harder. Confidence becomes fragile because it depends on maintaining an image rather than trusting yourself.

Therapy can help create enough safety to face and tell the truth — without shame — and begin living from it.

​Need support? Reach out now.

Dobos, B., Piko, B. F., & Mellor, D. (2021). What makes university students perfectionists? The role of childhood trauma, emotional dysregulation, academic anxiety, and social support. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 62(3), 443–447.
Schütze, I., Geraedts, K., & Leeners, B. (2020). The association between adverse childhood experiences and quality of partnership in adult women. Child Abuse & Neglect, 108, 104653. 
Preuter, S., Jaeger, B., & Stel, M. (2024). The costs of lying: Consequences of telling lies on liar's self-esteem and affect. British Journal of Social Psychology.
Verigin, B. L., Meijer, E. H., Bogaard, G., & Vrij, A. (2019). Lie prevalence, lie characteristics and strategies of self-reported good liars. PLOS ONE, 14(12), e0225566.

Try these three research-backed hacks:
1. Change your body. For two minutes (I suggest you set a timer), stand tall, open your chest, let your shoulders drop and take up a little more space. An open, expansive posture can reduce anxiety and increase awareness of what is happening inside your body (Weineck et al., 2020). That shift can make it easier to experience yourself as having some control, rather than being completely at the mercy of anxiety, worry or stress.

2. Schedule your worry. When your brain starts spiralling, say: “Not now. I’ll worry about this at 6pm.” Then return to what you were doing. Worry postponement has been shown to reduce excessive worry in people with generalised anxiety disorder (Heiden et al., 2024).

3. Change the picture. If your mind keeps replaying a frightening scenario, imagine it again—but this time change what happens next. Picture yourself becoming bigger, stronger, supported or in control. Imagery-based techniques can significantly reduce symptoms associated with distressing mental images (Kroener et al., 2023).

And then there is the relationship. One of the most powerful predictors of successful therapy is not simply which technique is used, but who you are doing the work with. Research consistently shows that the quality of the relationship between therapist and client predicts better outcomes—and that therapists differ significantly in how effectively they help people change (Del Re et al., 2021; Wampold & Ulvenes, 2021).

​Good counselling gives you more than strategies. It gives you a relationship in which change can actually happen.

​Need support? Reach out now.

Del Re, A. C., Flückiger, C., Horvath, A. O., & Wampold, B. E. (2021). Examining therapist effects in the alliance–outcome relationship: A multilevel meta-analysis. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 89(5), 371–378. https://doi.org/10.1037/ccp0000637
Heiden, C., et al. (2024). Worry postponement from the metacognitive perspective: A randomized waitlist-controlled trial. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. PubMed
Kroener, J., Hack, L., Mayer, B., & Sosic-Vasic, Z. (2023). Imagery rescripting as a short intervention for symptoms associated with mental images in clinical disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 166, 49–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2023.09.010 
Scott, A. J., Bisby, M. A., Heriseanu, A. I., Hathway, T., Karin, E., Gandy, M., Dudeney, J., Staples, L. G., Titov, N., & Dear, B. F. (2022). Understanding the untreated course of anxiety disorders in treatment-seeking samples: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 89, 102590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2022.102590 
Wampold, B. E., & Ulvenes, P. G. (2021). It's the therapist and the treatment: The structure of common therapeutic relationship factors. Psychotherapy Research, 31(2), 139–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/10503307.2021.1916640 
Weineck, F., Schultchen, D., Hauke, G., Messner, M., & Pollatos, O. (2020). Using bodily postures to reduce anxiety and improve interoception: A comparison between powerful and neutral poses. PLOS ONE, 15(12), e0242578. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242578 

We already know that scrolling can become addictive. But there may be another reason to pause before we spend another hour watching other people do the things we wish we were doing.

Watch someone sing. Exercise. Cook. Create. Travel. Transform their life. It can feel motivating. But there is an unnerving possibility that watching can sometimes satisfy the goal without us actually moving towards it.

Research on vicarious goal satiation found that when people watched someone else complete a goal, they subsequently showed less striving towards that same goal (Aarts et al., 2011). In other words, our brains can respond to someone else's goal pursuit in ways that temporarily reduce our own motivation to pursue it.

And scrolling endless short-form video may compound this. Recent research involving almost 100,000 people found that greater short-form video use was associated with poorer attention and inhibitory control — in everyday terms, potentially making it harder to resist the automatic urge to check your phone when it lights up, or to stop scrolling when you've decided you've had enough (Nguyen et al., 2025).

This is where Solution-Focused Therapy offers an interesting counterpoint: change doesn't require a giant leap. It begins by identifying what we want to be different — and finding the smallest step towards it.

What micro-step could you take right now towards something that matters to you?
​
​Need support? Reach out now.

Aarts, H., Gollwitzer, P. M., & Hassin, R. R. (2011). Vicarious goal satiation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(3), 685–688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.019
Franklin, C., Ding, X., Kim, J., Zhang, A., Hai, A. H., Jones, K., Nachbaur, M., & O'Connor, A. (2024). Solution-Focused Brief Therapy in community-based services: A meta-analysis of randomized controlled studies. Research on Social Work Practice, 34(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/10497315231162611
Neippa, M.-C., & Beyebach, M. (2022). The global outcomes of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: A revision. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 48(1), 110–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12593
Nguyen, L., Walters, J., Paul, S., Monreal Ijurco, S., Rainey, G. E., Parekh, N., Blair, G., & Darrah, M. (2025). Feeds, feelings, and focus: A systematic review and meta-analysis examining the cognitive and mental health correlates of short-form video use. Psychological Bulletin, 151(9), 1125–1146. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000498
Vermeulen-Oskam, E., Franklin, C., van ’t Hof, L. P. M., Stams, G. J. J. M., van Vugt, E. S., Assink, M., Veltman, E. J., Froerer, A. S., Staaks, J. P. C., & Zhang, A. (2024). The current evidence of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: A meta-analysis of psychosocial outcomes and moderating factors. Clinical Psychology Review, 114, 102512. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102512

We usually think of loneliness as an emotion. Emerging neuroscience suggests it's closer to hunger—a biological signal that something essential for survival is missing. The human brain evolved in cooperative social groups, where safety depended on connection. According to Social Baseline Theory, our brains expect supportive relationships because they reduce the cognitive and physiological effort required to navigate the world. When those relationships are absent, the brain reallocates resources towards vigilance and self-protection, increasing our sensitivity to stress and threat (Coan & Sbarra, 2015).

This helps explain why chronic loneliness is far more than an unpleasant feeling. Emerging research links persistent loneliness with increased risk of depression, anxiety, cardiovascular disease and earlier mortality. For people living with relational trauma or attachment wounds, the dilemma is especially painful: the very connection they long for can also feel unsafe (Mann et al., 2022; Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015).

​​This is where singing becomes surprisingly powerful. Group singing synchronises breath, rhythm and attention, creating conditions that promote trust, belonging and emotional safety. Forbes (2024) suggests that singers can become "positively energising leaders" who strengthen community connection. For those recovering from loneliness or trauma, finding your voice may also be a way of finding your way back to each other.

Need support? Reach out now
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Coan, J. A., & Sbarra, D. A. (2015). Social Baseline Theory: The social regulation of risk and effort. Current Opinion in Psychology, 1, 87–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2014.12.021
Forbes, M. (2024). Addressing the global crisis of social connection: Singers as positively energising leaders who create belonging in our communities. Voice and Speech Review, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/23268263.2024.2339384
Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T. B., Baker, M., Harris, T., & Stephenson, D. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: A meta-analytic review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691614568352
Mann, F., Wang, J., Pearce, E., et al. (2022). Loneliness and the onset of new mental health problems in the general population: A systematic review. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 57, 2161–2178. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-022-02261-7

The Nuanced Narcissistic Spectrum
In everyday life, narcissism rarely presents as overt vanity. Instead, it manifests in quiet, highly adaptive behavioral patterns that can be difficult to identify:

• The Vulnerable Martyr (Covert): They control environments through conspicuous exhaustion, subtle sighs, and a chronic sense of unappreciation. They secure compliance by ensuring partners feel constantly responsible for their emotional comfort.
• The Public Philanthropist (Communal): Celebrated externally for their generosity, empathy, and community investment, they reserve a detached, highly critical, or emotionally vacant persona exclusively for their intimate partner.
• The Intellectual Arbiter (Cerebral): They weaponise logic, vocabulary, and perceived expertise to quietly dismantle a partner’s confidence. Disagreements are framed not as differences of opinion, but as proof of the partner's cognitive or emotional deficiency.
• The Devotee (Spiritual): They use concepts such as mindfulness, psychological growth, or philosophy to evade accountability. A partner’s legitimate hurt is dismissed as "low vibration," unevolved, or a failure to forgive.

Sophisticated Trapping Dynamics
The strategies used to entrench these relationships are rarely aggressive at the outset. Instead, they rely on a gradual erosion of autonomy. A primary tactic is hyper-attentive isolation. A partner might encourage you to step back from a stressful job, distance yourself from a critical friend, or hand over financial management under the elegant guise of wanting to protect and care for you.

Once your external support structures are minimised, the dynamic shifts to ambient gaslighting. This does not involve absurd denials, but rather a steady, calm rewriting of shared history. They might conveniently misremember financial agreements, subtly alter details of past conversations, or express gentle concern about your "forgetfulness" or stress levels. Over time, you begin to doubt your own perception. When the emotional toll inevitably causes you to react with anger or despair, the abuser utilises reactive framing—contrasting their calm, collected demeanor against your visible distress to imply that you are the unstable element in the relationship.

Shifting Toward Somatic and Parts-Based Recovery
Undoing this deep conditioning requires moving beyond traditional talk therapy. Mental health practitioners increasingly utilise somatic work and parts-based work to address relational trauma.

Because prolonged psychological stress becomes physically trapped in the body, somatic therapies focus on two aspects of healing. Firstly, regulating a chronically defensive nervous system. Secondly, releasing trapped survival energy allows the body to complete defensive actions (such as pushing, running, or protecting itself) that could not be enacted during the traumatic event. Individuals are supported to process attachment wounds at a physiological level, rather than just intellectually analysing the abuse.

Concurrently, parts-based work helps individuals identify and soothe the internal protective parts learned in childhood to appease difficult personalities, ignore red flags, or sacrifice personal boundaries to maintain connection. To heal the aspects of their personality that were conditioned to accept manipulation or neglect.

Together, these evidence-based approaches offer a clinical pathway to restore safety, re-establish internal boundaries, and naturally shift the nervous system toward attracting healthy, reciprocal relationships.

Need support? Reach out now

Briere, J., & Jordan, C. E. (2021). Complex trauma interventions and trauma-informed care: A comprehensive review. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 34(3), 562–575.
Goldstein, R. L., Snyder, M. H., & Harris, L. J. (2025). Validating the clinical safety, feasibility, and acceptability of body-oriented somatic therapies for post-traumatic stress. Journal of Mind-Body Regulation, 4(2), 114–128.
Cale, E. J., & Miller, S. R. (2022). Healing the fractured self: Evaluating parts-based inner-child processing for relational and narcissistic abuse survivors. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 23(4), 412–429.
Grabbe, L., Nicholson, A., & Sapp, M. (2025). The body can balance the score: Using a somatic self-care intervention to support well-being and promote healing. Healthcare, 13(11), Article 1258.
Kuhfuß, M., Maldei, T., Hetmanek, A., & Baumann, N. (2021). Somatic experiencing—Effectiveness and key factors of a body-oriented trauma therapy: A scoping literature review. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12(1), Article 1929023. [1]
Phan, H. T., & Taylor, J. R. (2026). From Somatic Experiencing to felt safety: Assessing the effects of brief body-oriented interventions on relational and social well-being. Traumatology, 32(1), 45–58.
Turner, L. M., & Smith, K. A. (2024). Navigating the aftermath of narcissistic manipulation: Ego-state and parts-informed interventions for chronic relationship stress. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 31(2), e2934

Understanding fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and shutdown responses

Our early relationships play an important role in shaping how we experience safety, connection, and closeness in adulthood. When childhood involves trauma, emotional neglect, inconsistency, or unmet needs, the nervous system can adapt in ways that help us survive at the time, but may later show up as challenges in adult relationships.

Research in attachment theory and trauma psychology shows that early relational experiences are closely linked with how we regulate emotions and respond to stress in close relationships later in life (Simpson & Rholes, 2017; Bryant, 2023). These responses are not conscious choices — they are often automatic, protective patterns shaped by the nervous system.

When we feel unsafe or emotionally overwhelmed, the body may move into different survival states:

• Fight can show up as anger, defensiveness, or a strong need to take control when feeling threatened.
• Flight may appear as withdrawal, avoidance, or difficulty staying emotionally present.
• Freeze can feel like shutting down, going blank, or finding it hard to respond.
• Fawn often involves people-pleasing, over-apologising, or prioritising others’ needs to maintain connection.
• Shutdown / faint responses may look like emotional numbing, dissociation, or feeling collapsed under stress.

These patterns are not signs of failure. They are intelligent survival responses developed in early environments where safety may have depended on adaptation.

With awareness and support, these responses can gradually become more flexible. Therapy can help create space to notice these patterns with compassion, understand where they come from, and develop new ways of relating that feel safer, more connected, and more aligned with your present life.

Need support? Reach out now
​
Simpson, J. A., & Rholes, W. S. (2017). Adult attachment, stress, and romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology.
Bryant, R. A. (2023). Attachment processes in posttraumatic stress disorder. Clinical Psychology Review.
Overall, N. C., et al. (2022). Attachment insecurity in couple relationships. Nature Reviews Psychology.
McLean, C. P., et al. (2020). Childhood trauma and adult attachment outcomes. Journal of Family Trauma Studies.
Yılmaz, H., Arslan, C., & Arslan, E. (2022). Traumatic experiences and attachment styles. Anales de Psicología.

While AI offers instant access, it can’t replace the biological necessity of human connection. Therapy isn't just data exchange; it’s a neurological event.

The biggest hurdle? Eye contact. Human gaze builds the safety required to foster secure attachment. Without it, the brain misses vital non-verbal cues that signal trust. This is amplified by mirror neurons—the brain’s empathy hardware. A human therapist literally "resonates" with your pain, a biological mirroring that AI can only simulate, not share.

The data confirms this gap. While AI can reduce symptoms short-term, it fails the "accountability test." Research shows a staggering 80% adherence rate for human therapy, while AI tools plummet to just 6%. Why? Because we heal through relationships, not algorithms. Without a real person witnessing your journey, engagement wanes. AI is a tool, but the human bond remains the only true engine for lasting psychological transformation.

​​Need support? Reach out now

AKG Australia. (2026, February 20). AI vs human therapist in mental health support. https://akg.com.au/ai-vs-human-therapist-in-mental-health-support/
Baumel, A., Muench, F., Edan, S., & Kane, J. M. (2019). Objective user engagement with mental health apps: Systematic search and panel-based usage analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 21(9), e14567. doi.org [1, 2]
Franke Föyen, L., Zapel, E. C. M., Lekander, M., Hedman-Lagerlöf, E., & Lindsäter, E. (2025). Artificial intelligence vs. human expert: Licensed mental health clinicians' blinded evaluation of AI-generated and expert psychological advice on quality, empathy, and perceived authorship. Internet Interventions, 41, 100841. doi.org
Maidment, K., Newby, J., Grant, H., Lattimore, J., Pollard, P., Scott, N., & Whitton, A. (2026). AI in mental health roundtable report. Black Dog Institute. https://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/BDI_AI-in-Mental-Health-Roundtable-9-Feb-2026.pdf [1, 2]
Performance of mental health chatbot agents in detecting and managing suicidal ideation. (2025). Scientific Reports, 15(31652). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-17242-4

Insomnia often feels like an internal battle—one part of you is longing for sleep, another part is refusing to switch off. Parts theory offers a different lens: instead of fighting wakefulness, you get curious about it.

In a Parts-based therapeutic approach, restless thoughts are protective “parts,” attempting to anticipate risk or solve problems. When sleep won’t come, you might notice: “Something in me is trying to keep me awake.” This simple shift reduces internal conflict. You can then ask what that part needs. Often, it seeks reassurance—writing concerns down or offering calming self-talk can help. This aligns with the Hyperarousal Theory of Insomnia, where persistent cognitive and physiological activation maintains wakefulness across the 24-hour cycle.

Paradoxically, sleep becomes more accessible when control softens. Relating to thoughts as "parts" begins the important shift to creating internal safety—key for settling the nervous system.

​Need support? Reach out now

I have a history of chronic insomnia due to traumatisation. I have impeccable sleep hygiene. I've tried CBT-I, DBT, EFT, Mindfulness, Mindful Self-Compassion, Hypnosis, PMR, counting strategies, journaling, Sleep Apps, sounds, stories and guided meditations, natural remedies, and medication. Four months ago, I started working therapeutically with my traumatised "parts" to treat the insomnia. Finally, I can sleep.

Schwartz, R. C., & Sweezy, M. (2020). Internal family systems therapy (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
Hodgdon, H. B., Anderson, F. G., Southwell, E., Hrubec, W., & Schwartz, R. (2022). Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Survivors of Multiple Childhood Trauma: A Pilot Effectiveness Study. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 31(1), 22–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2021.2013375
Dai, Y., Ma, J., Vgontzas, A. N., Chen, B., Chen, L., Wu, J., Zheng, D., Zhang, J., Karataraki, M., & Li, Y. (2024). Insomnia disorder is associated with 24-hour cortical hyperarousal. Sleep medicine, 124, 681–687. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2024.11.002
Rösler, L., van Kesteren, E. J., Leerssen, J., van der Lande, G., Lakbila-Kamal, O., Foster-Dingley, J. C., Albers, A., & van Someren, E. J. (2024). Hyperarousal dynamics reveal an overnight increase boosted by insomnia. Journal of psychiatric research, 179, 279–285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.09.032

Singing boosts immune competence, reducing vulnerability to illness (Kreutz et al., 2004).

People who sing have higher levels of Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SigA), an antibody that responds to the threat of infection in the upper respiratory tract (Kuhn, 2002). Notably, Beck (2000) found SigA increased by 150% during singing rehearsals, and 240% during vocal performance!

Unfortunately just listening to music doesn’t have the same effect. It’s the act of singing that stimulates the vagus nerve, engages deep rhythmic breathing and creates vocal vibration leading to an increase in SigA. The good news is that you don’t have to sing in tune or sound good to yourself. Just singing any way you like will do the job. So head down to the beach, jump in your car, or get together with a friend and sing!

Beck, R. J., Cesario, T. C., Yousefi, A., & Enamoto, H. (2000). Choral singing, performance perception, and immune system changes in salivary immunoglobulin a and cortisol. Music Perception, 18(1), 87–106. https://doi.org/10.2307/40285902
Kreutz, G., Bongard, S., Rohrmann, S. et al. (2004). Effects of Choir Singing or Listening on Secretory Immunoglobulin A, Cortisol, and Emotional State. J Behav Med, 27, 623–635. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-004-0006-9
Kuhn, D. (2002), The Effects of Active and Passive Participation in Musical Activity on the Immune System as Measured by Salivary Immunoglobulin A (SlgA), Journal of Music Therapy, 39 (1), 30–39, https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/39.1.30