KANGAROO MINDS

In recent times, amidst all the other news, it has been the high-profile defamation trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard which has gripped everyone’s attention. Whether or not we were planning to follow this trial, we all found ourselves sucked into this courtroom drama as we were bombarded with audios and video clips, analysis from everyone ranging from body language experts to mental health professionals and armchair critics on social media and a barrage of often cring

Every time we hear another news story about how gun violence has created havoc and claimed more innocent lives somewhere in the world, we find ourselves shaken to the core. We immediately feel anguish for the victims, pain for the families who lost loved ones, anger at the perpetrator of the crime, rage at the system which allows these senseless acts of violence to continue and we may find ourselves feeling vulnerable and worried about our own safety as well. Mass shootings a

It has been estimated that 20% of the population affected by a humanitarian crisis need psychological care, but only 2% of them get access to the care they need. Humanitarian emergencies such as war, natural disasters, or pandemics profoundly disrupt the daily lives of those impacted and result in psychological distress and high risk of mental disorders. With increasing frequency of humanitarian emergencies over the past decade, including the most recent crisis in Afghanistan

Just as we were reaching the 2 year anniversary of the Covid-19 lockdowns when we saw cases falling, rules easing and a glimmer of hope that things were returning back to normal, it felt like that tiny thread of hope was snapped when the Russian troops began the military assault on Ukraine and sparked a fear of global conflict. This fear of war and another humanitarian conflict has triggered an upheaval of emotions of anxiety, worry, pain, sadness and fear for us who have alr

The world today is facing the highest level of displacement on record, with between 68.5-70 million people being forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violation. As per the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugees are defined as people who have been forced out of their homes because of conflict or crisis. Refugees face a tremendous fear of persecution for various reasons, including religion, nationality, political opinion or memb

Reliving a bad memory after encountering a trigger can be a very hard experience which can leave you feeling very shaky, powerless, distressed and vulnerable. Triggers might be all around us and it is important to be aware of them as even though we might feel that our trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms are happening out-of-the-blue, that is rarely the case. Whether we are aware of it or not, we can be triggered or cued by something in our internal (thoug

If you ask someone who’d been through trauma or has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they might tell you that the thing they find hardest to cope with are the flashbacks which they might experience from time to time, often as a result of being triggered. Many people have a hard time coping with flashbacks and dissociation, which may occur because of encountering triggers which remind them of the traumatic event. These flashbacks are often unpredictable, disruptive and m