People sometimes say to me, “You must make a lot of money from your books!” The truth is, I don’t. Writing books is certainly not something I do for the money. By the time you consider the hours spent writing, researching, editing and rewriting, I can assure you there are much easier ways to make a living! So why have I written five of them?
For me, writing has always been about sharing psychology in a way that might help someone. As a clinical psychologist, researcher and educator, I have been fortunate to learn an enormous amount from the people I have worked with, the research I have conducted and the students I have taught. Books give me a way of taking some of that knowledge beyond the consulting room or university and making it available to anyone who might find it useful.
Each of my books has grown out of the questions, struggles and conversations I encounter in my work. While they cover different topics and are written for different audiences, they share a common purpose: making psychology understandable, practical and useful in everyday life.
No Body’s Perfect is a helper’s guide to promoting positive body image in children and young people. It was written for the adults around them, because the way we talk about bodies matters. One simple lesson is to become aware of our own body talk. Children notice when adults criticise their weight, announce they have been bad for eating something or constantly discuss dieting. We can instead help children understand that their worth is about much more than appearance and encourage them to respect and care for their bodies.
My clinical work with people experiencing eating disorders led to Eating Disorders: A Practitioner’s Guide. Although primarily for health professionals, there is an important lesson for everyone: eating disorders are serious psychological illnesses, not diets gone too far or choices people make. If someone is struggling, “just eat” or “you don’t look like you have an eating disorder” rarely helps. Listen, take their distress seriously and encourage professional support rather than becoming the food police.
Embracing You focuses on something many of us find surprisingly difficult: accepting ourselves as we are rather than constantly chasing an imaginary improved version. Notice how often your thoughts contain should, must or not enough. Then ask yourself, “According to whom?” Sometimes the standards we are desperately trying to meet aren’t ours.
My latest book, It’s Not Just You, grew from my Canberra Weekly columns and covers the very human problems we encounter: relationships, grief, ageing, anxiety, work stress, and coping when life doesn’t go to plan. Perhaps its most important lesson is in the title, it really isn’t just you.
