Psychology Project

Is finishing Year 12 always the right call?

At 15, Curtis Christofi knew he wanted to be a builder. His parents made him stay in school. By the time he finished, he was lost. He took a few wrong turns, and starting an apprenticeship later, on apprentice wages, no longer appealed.

Today he’s a happy, successful personal trainer. But he still wonders if building would have been the better path, and the better money. His parents wonder too.

We talk about guidance, or the lack of it, the pressure to finish school, and whether academics is the only route worth taking.

If you’re a parent, or someone still wondering “what if”, this one’s for you.

One in five psychologists leave the profession within five years — and it's rarely the clients that burn them out. It's the admin.

In this episode I'm joined by Ridhi Malhotra — Clinical, Educational and Developmental Psychologist, and Founder/CEO of PractaLuma, an AI-first practice management platform built specifically for mental health practitioners. She built it after years of writing reports at 2am, and we get into what she's learned building an AI tool from inside the therapy room.

We talk about what informed consent actually looks like when AI is used in session, why typing client details into ChatGPT is riskier than most psychologists realise, and how PractaLuma is trying to fix the exact admin problem that's driving people out of the profession.

Ridhi has over a decade of clinical experience across private practice, correctional settings, family violence work, and neurodevelopmental assessment. She also coordinates MHPN's Digital Mental Health and AI Network and is Secretary of the APS Domestic and Family Violence Interest Group.

In this episode, Joe shares a bit about his career journey and his philosophy in business. We also discuss the very important parts of money — our thoughts, feelings, and the decision-making process behind all of our financial decisions and habits.

Diagnosed bipolar at fourteen and medicated for years, only to find out as an adult that the diagnosis was wrong entirely. In this episode I sit down with Emmaleen Diaz, a full-time portrait artist and finalist on Season 1 of ABC's Portrait Artist of the Year Australia, who was adopted from Colombia as a baby and given a short-term memory disorder diagnosis before she'd even started school.

We get into growing up with a learning difference inside a school system built on rote memory, what it actually took to get properly reassessed as an adult, what that reassessment revealed about how her brain really works, and how she uses her art — bold, abstract portraiture influenced by Frida Kahlo, Picasso and Matisse — to quiet a very busy mind.

It's a reminder that a diagnosis given to a child isn't always the full story, and sometimes it takes decades to get the right one.

Find Emmaleen at emmaleendiaz.com or @emmaleen_diaz on Instagram.

Your gut is talking to your brain long before you consciously clock that something's wrong. In this episode I sit down with Courtney from NaturoMind, a naturopath mid way through a double degree and currently completing a Masters in Neuroscience, for a proper conversation about food, hormones and the nervous system.

We get into the gut brain connection, why so many women are chronically under eating, what actually helps with PMDD and endometriosis, and the herb that works almost exactly like an SSRI. Courtney also gets honest about her own trauma recovery and the strange physical sensation of coming out of fight or flight mid session.

It's a reminder that healing isn't linear, and that looking after your body is never just one thing.

Find Courtney at naturomind.com.au or @naturomind_naturopathy on Instagram.

Have you felt too anxious to start going to the gym? Or do you still get gym-related anxiety long after consistent effort?  this episode, Ish and I unpack why that happens and walk through the tools that actually shift it: exposure therapy and graded exposure, tweaking your environment so the gym feels less like enemy territory, mindset shifts, thought experiments, and breaking the whole thing down into steps small enough that you can't talk yourself out of them. Ish draws on both her own experience and her coaching work. By the end you'll walk away with at least one tool you can use before your next session, or you'll feel a bit more prepared to finally make that leap and start going to the gym!

Carolina is a mum raising a four-year-old son with autism, and in this episode she shares her story with remarkable honesty. We talk about her own mental health journey, the grief of watching her son withdraw into his own world, and how she continues to carry that grief while showing up for him every day. She opens up about navigating the NDIS and Australia's health system, and in one of the most powerful moments of this conversation, she bravely shares what happened when desperation led her to trust the wrong person online — and the consequences that followed. If you're a parent of a child with high needs, or you want to understand autism better — this one's for you.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dominique, who shares her own ADHD journey — including being misdiagnosed with narcolepsy before finally getting the right diagnosis. We talk about how that experience led her into studying nutrition, and how she now uses a mix of nutrition and medication to manage her ADHD day-to-day. She's now passionate about helping busy women eat well and feel better, without adding more to their plate.🎙️ Psychology Project🔗 psychologyproject.net

In this episode, Yelena traces her journey from teenage curiosity about spirituality and meditation to building a nationally accredited psychotherapy training institute — taking in aikido, colour healing, and a life-changing encounter with Arnold Mindell's Process work along the way. 

Yelena's exploration of alternative healing practices eventually led her to Process-Oriented Psychotherapy, developed by Arnold Mindell — an approach that works across sensory channels, integrating dreams, body symptoms, and deeper wisdom to support clients. She explains what makes this modality distinct and why it resonated with her own lived experience. 

Yelena also shares details about the training program she runs: a two-year Graduate Diploma in Trauma-Informed Process work Psychotherapy, accredited by ASQA and recognised by PACFA, ACA, and ATMS. The course is built around practical skill development — including description of a three-symbol exercise for trauma assessment and role-play scenarios that prepare students to meet real client needs 

Today’s guest is Dr Emma Agnew — a Clinical Psychologist with over 13 years of experience across the UK and Australia, and founder of The Listening Room Psychology. Emma holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and was awarded Psychologist of the Year in 2020 for developing an innovative trauma-informed service within a large public hospital — a service she literally built from scratch because she saw a gap in the system and refused to ignore it.In this episode, Emma takes us through her incredible professional journey — from working with inmates, to the chaos of public hospital psych wards, to witnessing firsthand how Australia’s system fails some of its most vulnerable people — including those who have recently attempted suicide. Whether you’ve ever been curious about what life really looks like behind the scenes as a psychologist, or you’re earlier in your psychology career wondering where the path might take you — this one is for you.