APS College of Health Psychologists

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/eoqBrMdzEYiCndid (Previous Minutes attached)

Your voice matters - see you there!

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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]

🧠💤 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]

APS Events: 25782 | APS We're here for you — supporting your career, our profession, and serving as your trusted advisor. Click here to renew today.

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!

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! :)

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

Registration closes 15 May 2026

Today's session deepened my understanding of Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) as a condition sitting at the intersection of neurology and psychology. Dr Kate Gill's lived experience powerfully illustrated the harm caused by systemic dismissal, while Linda Tamre's framing of FND as a dysfunction in predictive processing and stress response systems - rather than a product of single trauma - offered clinically useful, de-stigmatising language.

The Emma case study prompted useful reflection on my own biases around the physical-psychological divide and reinforced the idea that advocating for diagnostic clarity is itself a meaningful clinical act. I leave with greater confidence that my existing skills in chronic pain and complex presentations are highly transferable to FND.

A sincere thank you to Sue Yencken for facilitating such a thoughtful and well-structured round table.

Hello everyone! Have you received our study article for tomorrow's workshop? Please email us at [email protected] if you haven’t. This month, we have two very special guests who are experts in FND to help facilitate our reflection. We look forward to seeing you all at noon tomorrow🤩

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