Author Archives: Mr. Shannon Quinn, Registered Psychologist

Individuals with ADHD who come to see me for therapy often ask what is going on in their brain, and how their brain is different from “normal people’s” brains. I struggle to answer this question because 1. I don’t want to spend too much of our time together lecturing about the latest literature on theContinue reading “My ADHD brain: 4 areas of the brain affected in ADHD”

Earlier this year I employed an illustrator to help me develop some prompt cards to use in session with clients, stimulate conversation, and add a visual component to further explain some of the unhelpful thinking styles commonly seen in anxiety, depression, and other psychological difficulties. I think they have come together really well and theContinue reading “Free for Download: Prompt Cards for Conversations about Cognitive Distortions”

At times, individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (i.e. Autism, Intellectual Disability, ADHD) can behave in ways that are challenging to those around them. The behaviours may be directed toward others, or toward themselves and can be highly distressing for the individual, carers, and those around them. Behaviours are most distressing and challenging when they cause harmContinue reading “Challenging Behaviour – Functional Behavioural Assessment”

Employing focussing strategies can help students maximise their study time and remember more information. If an environment is less distracting, students are more likely to be able to manipulate information in their mind. In turn, students will be better able to remember the information over time. Furthermore, if students employ strategies to self-monitor how distractedContinue reading “Study Habits – PATS”

For some people on the spectrum, daily living skills may be more difficult to learn than for normally developing individuals their age. To teach a skill that has not yet developed, caregivers should be able to help the individual break the skill down into multiple steps. By breaking the task down into each step, caregiversContinue reading “Autism – Teaching Daily Living Skills”

In the field of Psychology, Schemas have been defined in various ways over the years. Aaron Beck, founder of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy used the term schema to define a collection of negative beliefs, and other researchers and authors (i.e. Piaget) have introduced the idea that individuals experience a mix of adaptive and maladaptive schemas whichContinue reading “Schemas”

All too often, relationships of all kinds can be coloured by disconnection, alienation, and hurt. Loved ones, children, parents, friends, and colleagues can and do fall into negative patterns of communication that cause conflict. A few years ago, I was thankful to discover Non-Violent Communication (NVC) which helped scaffold my understanding of how to thinkContinue reading “Communicating Compassionately”

Our mind does have some pretty neat tricks. A lot of the time it is very good at categorising, problem solving, and working with information in its different forms. At times though, our mind can lead us down the garden path without us being aware of it. Cognitive distortions are one such way that ourContinue reading “Cognitive Distortions”