Author Archives: Mr. Shannon Quinn, Registered Psychologist

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”

At times we can easily become fixated on what is wrong with ourselves and others, and can forget about what is right with us. With some 300 disorders listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the study of Psychology and Psychiatry are not immune to this phenomenon of negativity, tending to focusContinue reading “Human Strengths”

Our personal values (i.e. honesty, fitness, intimacy) and for some of us our faith, spirituality or religion are important sources of strength and meaning. They are powerful motivators which can help us to tolerate uncomfortable experiences and act in a valued way. When acting in a valued way, our lives become meaningful. When acting inContinue reading “Personal Values”

As human’s, it seems that we are bound to suffer at one time or another during our lives. Uncomfortable experiences seem to be part of the human condition. We experience emotions and bodily sensations that are unchosen and often unwanted. Of course, when something is unwanted, our first reaction is to want to stop orContinue reading “Human Suffering”

What are traps anyway? I first learned the term “life trap” when discovering Schema Therapy (Jeffrey Young) which was a user friendly term to describe Schema’s. A schema is a pattern of thought and behaviour (typically learned early in life) that organises information and generally makes processing that information a lot quicker, and often moreContinue reading “Traps”