Glossary.

Changing your relationship to thoughts rather than arguing with their content, so they carry less weight.

From Anxiety

The model EMDR is built on: the idea that distressing memories get stuck unprocessed, and that the mind can finish the job with the right conditions.

From EMDR therapy

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. It works with the national boards, including the Psychology Board of Australia, to register health practitioners and handle complaints about them.

ahpra.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

Difficulty naming your own feelings. Frequently co-occurs with autism and is not the same as lacking empathy.

From Autism

Loss of pleasure or of the anticipation of pleasure. Often the symptom people find hardest to describe and hardest to live with.

From Depression & Low Mood

The dread before the event, which is very often worse than the event.

From Anxiety

Restriction driven by sensory experience, low interest in eating, or fear of a consequence, rather than by shape or weight concerns.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Abilities developing at markedly different rates, so that reasoning, emotional regulation and motor skill are years apart. Characteristic of 2e.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Anorexia in every respect except weight. Same risks, same seriousness, far more common, far less often diagnosed.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Being both Autistic and ADHD. Increasingly recognised, with its own experiences that neither label alone describes.

From ADHD · also on Autism

The Australian Professional Association for Trans Health, the peak body for trans health professionals in Australia.

From Gender-affirming care

Loss of skills and capacity after prolonged masking and over-demand. Distinct from depression, and treated differently.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional) · also on Autism

Most Autistic adults prefer identity-first language, because autism is not a thing they carry; it is how they are. We follow your lead.

From Autism

The central mechanism. Every avoidance works brilliantly in the short term and makes the next encounter harder.

From Anxiety · also on OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Rebuilding activity deliberately and in small steps, because action restores motivation rather than waiting for it. One of the best-evidenced treatments there is.

From Depression & Low Mood

A fast-acting anxiety medication. Effective short term, prescribed cautiously because of dependence and because it can undercut exposure work.

From Anxiety

The Medicare program that gives rebates for sessions with a psychologist when a GP has made a Mental Health Treatment Plan. Your GP must confirm an eligible mental health condition.

health.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

Anything that alternates left and right, such as eye movements, taps on the hands or knees, or tones in each ear. It is what holds part of your attention while the memory is processed.

From EMDR therapy

A different condition involving episodes of elevated as well as low mood. It matters because the treatment differs, which is why your history gets asked about.

From Depression & Low Mood

The opposite strategy, with the same effect: avoiding mirrors, photographs and clothes shopping entirely.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Repeated measuring, mirror use, pinching or comparing. It reliably increases distress and is a target in treatment.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Working alongside another person, in the room or on a call, because their presence makes starting and continuing easier.

From ADHD

Enhanced cognitive behavioural therapy for eating disorders. The most established psychological treatment across diagnoses.

From Eating & Body Concerns

When a test is not hard enough to find the top of your ability, so the score understates it and the profile flattens.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Anything that tries to change or suppress a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. Illegal in Victoria under the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021, and harmful wherever it happens.

Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (opens in a new tab)

A GP plan for people with a long-term health condition. It can give Medicare rebates for some allied health sessions, including psychology.

Funding

The professional standards every registered psychologist in Australia must meet, including informed consent, cultural safety and non-discrimination. The current Code took effect on 1 December 2025.

psychologyboard.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

A habitual thinking shortcut that skews the picture: all-or-nothing, mind reading, catastrophising, discounting the positive.

From Depression & Low Mood

The private systems built to produce ordinary output. Invisible by design, which is why nothing gets identified.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

The clinical term for what is done to undo eating. We will use it rather than the specifics, here and generally.

From Eating & Body Concerns

The ICD-11 diagnosis for trauma that was prolonged and hard to escape, adding difficulties with emotion, self-worth and relationships.

From Trauma & PTSD

Anything done to neutralise the distress: a visible behaviour or a purely mental act.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Care that the person receiving it experiences as safe for their culture and identity. It is defined by the person, not the practitioner.

Ahpra (opens in a new tab)

A name someone no longer uses. Using it on purpose is a form of harm.

From Gender-affirming care

Feeling unreal yourself, or feeling the world around you is unreal. Distressing, common, and not a sign of losing your mind.

From Trauma & PTSD

Harm during the years your brain was still forming its expectations of people. It shapes the baseline rather than interrupting it.

From Trauma & PTSD

Disconnection between things normally joined up: memory, identity, emotion, body. A spectrum, from spacing out to losing time.

From Trauma & PTSD

The neurotransmitter most involved in motivation and reward. ADHD brains regulate it differently, which is why interest and urgency work when importance does not.

From ADHD

The finding that communication breaks down in both directions between Autistic and non-Autistic people. The 'deficit' is in the mismatch, not in you.

From Autism

Twice exceptional. High ability alongside a disability or neurodivergence. Descriptive, not diagnostic.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Thrice exceptional. The same, with a further axis of marginalisation such as being queer, First Nations, culturally marginalised or chronically ill.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

A GP-initiated Medicare pathway giving access to more sessions than a standard Mental Health Treatment Plan. Ask your GP whether it applies.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. A structured therapy using side-to-side attention while a memory is held in mind, so it can be filed as past.

From Trauma & PTSD

Exposure and Response Prevention. Approaching the trigger while not performing the compulsion. The treatment with the strongest evidence for OCD.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Planning, starting, organising, prioritising and regulating. Frequently the weaker axis in an otherwise strong profile.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional) · also on ADHD

Once your out-of-pocket costs for out-of-hospital Medicare services pass a yearly threshold, Medicare pays back more of the gap for the rest of the calendar year. Thresholds change each year.

Services Australia (opens in a new tab)

When people around you participate: answering the reassurance, doing the checking, adjusting the household. Understandable, loving, and it maintains the OCD.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Family-Based Treatment. The leading approach for adolescents. We work with adults, and mention it because people ask.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Re-experiencing rather than remembering. It can be visual, but it is just as often purely emotional or physical, with no image at all.

From Trauma & PTSD

The DSM-5-TR term for distress that can come from a mismatch between your gender and your sex assigned at birth. Not everyone who is trans has it.

From Gender-affirming care

The ICD-11 term. The World Health Organization moved it out of the mental disorders chapter and into sexual health, because being trans is not a mental illness.

From Gender-affirming care

Hormones that help a person's body better match their gender. In Australia, adults can usually start through a GP using an informed consent model, without a psychologist's letter or a psychiatrist.

AusPATH (opens in a new tab)

In psychology, ability significantly above the population average. A measured descriptor, not a compliment or a personality.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

A letter from your GP that connects us with your wider care. It is different from a Mental Health Treatment Plan.

Getting started

Deliberately approaching what you avoid, in a planned order you set, staying long enough for the anxiety to fall on its own. The most effective ingredient we have.

From Anxiety

Practical techniques for returning to the present when the past arrives. Taught early, used often.

From Trauma & PTSD

The natural decline in fear when you stay in a situation without escaping. It happens by itself if you let it.

From Anxiety

A framework prioritising wellbeing over weight loss. Widely used, sometimes contested, and worth understanding either way.

From Eating & Body Concerns

The foot-down state: scanning, startling, racing heart, unable to settle. The nervous system stuck in mobilisation.

From Trauma & PTSD

Deep, hours-long absorption in something engaging, often at the expense of food, sleep or the thing you were meant to be doing.

From ADHD

Over-breathing, usually unnoticed. Produces the dizziness, tingling and unreality that make a panic attack feel catastrophic.

From Anxiety

The opposite and less talked about: numb, flat, heavy, shut down. Also a threat response, just a different one.

From Trauma & PTSD

Inference-based CBT. A newer approach targeting the reasoning that makes the doubt feel credible. Useful where ERP is not tolerable.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Care that makes room for every part of who you are at once, including culture, sexuality, gender, disability, faith and neurotype.

The different parts of your identity

Agreeing to a treatment after understanding what it involves, its benefits, risks and alternatives, and knowing you can change your mind.

Psychology Board of Australia Code of Conduct (opens in a new tab)

Starting hormones by understanding the benefits and risks and agreeing to them yourself, with a doctor, rather than needing someone else's approval first.

From Gender-affirming care

The updated understanding of why exposure works: not erasing the fear, but building a stronger competing memory of safety.

From Anxiety

How much you believe the fear at the time. It varies within a person and does not indicate severity.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Harm caused by the response of an organisation you depended on, on top of the original event. It often hurts longer.

From Trauma & PTSD

The sense of your own internal state. Anxious people are often unusually accurate at detecting it, which is part of the problem.

From Anxiety · also on Autism · also on Eating & Body Concerns

The engine of generalised anxiety: not fear of a specific outcome, but difficulty sitting with not knowing.

From Anxiety

A thought that arrives uninvited. Almost everyone has them. OCD is not about having them; it is about what happens next.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

A physical sense of incompleteness that drives repeating until something feels correct. Common, and not always tied to a feared outcome.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

DSM-5-TR support levels. A description of current support needs, not of how Autistic someone is.

From Autism

The DSM-5-TR term for a distinct period meeting the full criteria. Episode, not identity, and most episodes end.

From Depression & Low Mood

Suppressing or compensating for traits to appear typical. Effective, and progressively more expensive over years.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional) · also on ADHD

Suppressing Autistic traits and performing neurotypical ones to get by. Linked to burnout, anxiety and late diagnosis.

From Autism

A particular pattern: worse in the morning, early waking, pleasure completely unreachable, marked physical slowing.

From Depression & Low Mood

Two forms of overload: an outward release, or an inward retreat. Neither is chosen, and both need recovery, not correction.

From Autism

Reviewing, arguing, praying, counting or checking internally. Invisible, and just as much a compulsion as washing.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

A GP plan that gives Medicare rebates for up to 10 sessions a calendar year with a psychologist. Since 1 November 2025 it is usually made through the practice you are registered with under MyMedicare, or your usual GP.

health.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

Your beliefs about your own thinking, such as worrying being useful or being uncontrollable. Often the useful target.

From Anxiety

Mental Health Treatment Plan. The GP referral that brings a Medicare rebate on eligible therapy sessions. It does not cover the assessment itself.

From ADHD · also on Anxiety · also on Depression & Low Mood

The extra load carried by people who are stigmatised: discrimination, threat, having to hide, and the vigilance that comes with all of it.

From Gender-affirming care

A theory of Autistic attention: fewer interests held at once, at far greater depth. Explains hyperfocus, difficulty switching, and why interruptions hurt.

From Autism

The damage of having done, witnessed or failed to prevent something that violated your own values. Common in health, emergency and defence work.

From Trauma & PTSD

Voluntary registration with a regular general practice. It links you to your usual GP and practice team.

health.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

The belief about yourself that came with the memory, such as "I am powerless", and the one you would rather hold, such as "I got through it".

From EMDR therapy

A mind that works differently from the dominant pattern. ADHD is one form of neurodivergence, alongside autism, dyslexia and others.

From ADHD

A mind that works differently from the dominant pattern, and one that fits it. Neither is better. Allistic means non-Autistic specifically.

From Autism

Care that treats autistic, ADHD and other neurodivergent ways of being as differences to understand and support, not defects to fix.

Screening and assessment

Cancelling out a bad thought with a good one, a phrase, an image or an action.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

A gender outside the categories of man and woman only, or not in them at all. An umbrella for many identities.

From Gender-affirming care

An unwanted, intrusive thought, image or urge that causes distress. Not a desire, despite the everyday meaning of the word.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Other Specified Feeding or Eating Disorder. The largest diagnostic group and routinely misread as the mild one. It is not.

From Eating & Body Concerns

An abrupt surge of intense fear peaking within minutes. Extremely unpleasant, not dangerous, and it always ends.

From Anxiety

Pathological demand avoidance, increasingly called pervasive drive for autonomy. A profile within autism marked by intense need for control in response to anxiety.

From Autism

Free support from a trained trans or gender diverse peer with lived experience. In Victoria, Transgender Victoria runs a Peer Navigation program funded by the Victorian Government.

Transgender Victoria (opens in a new tab)

Depression during pregnancy or in the year after birth. Affects birthing and non-birthing parents both.

From Depression & Low Mood

Low mood more days than not for at least two years. Previously called dysthymia. Less intense, more entrenched.

From Depression & Low Mood

Real, well-researched, and not compulsory. Some people find meaning afterwards. Nobody is obliged to, and it does not make the event worth it.

From Trauma & PTSD

The DSM-5-TR term for the type of ADHD: inattentive, hyperactive-impulsive, or combined. Not a measure of severity.

From ADHD

How quickly you take in and work with information. Commonly the lowest index in a 2e profile, and the one that drags the overall figure down.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Visibly slowed movement, speech or thought. Something an observer could see, not just an internal feeling.

From Depression & Low Mood

Community shorthand for OCD that looks purely obsessional. Slightly misleading, because the compulsions are there, they are just mental.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

The legal term in Australian workplaces and universities for changes an institution must consider. A formal assessment is what makes them accessible.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Asking, checking or searching to reduce doubt. Works for minutes and strengthens the loop each time.

From Anxiety · also on OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

A Victorian certificate that records a person's updated sex or name when they were born outside Victoria. Fees for updating sex records were removed in Victoria in 2025.

Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria (opens in a new tab)

Contested and personal. For most people it means food taking up an ordinary amount of room rather than never having a difficult thought again.

From Eating & Body Concerns

The medically supervised process of restoring nutrition. Carries real physical risk and is why medical oversight matters.

From Eating & Body Concerns

The last phase of treatment: knowing your own early signs and having a written plan for them. It measurably reduces the odds of a next episode.

From Depression & Low Mood

The preparation work: building the skills and inner places that help you stay steady during processing.

From EMDR therapy

The active half of ERP, and the half that does the work. Exposure without it simply rehearses the fear.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Rejection sensitive dysphoria. A community term, not in the manual, for the intense emotional response to real or perceived rejection many people with ADHD describe.

From ADHD

Going over the same ground without resolution. Distinct from problem-solving, and a strong predictor of episodes continuing.

From Depression & Low Mood

Worry runs forward into what might happen; rumination runs backward over what did. Different directions, same loop.

From Anxiety

Seasonal affective disorder. A depressive pattern tied to time of year. Less common in most of Australia than in the northern hemisphere, but real.

From Depression & Low Mood

Anything you do to make a feared situation feel survivable: sitting near the exit, over-preparing, having water to hand. It provides relief and prevents the fear being disproven.

From Anxiety

The spread between your strongest and weakest scores. In 2e profiles the scatter is the finding, and averaging destroys it.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

Religious or moral OCD: fear of having sinned or committed an unforgivable act.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Two sides of sensory difference. Most people do both, in different channels.

From Autism

The theory that bodies defend a genetically influenced weight range. Contested in detail, useful as a corrective to the idea that any body can be any size.

From Eating & Body Concerns

Terms used by some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people for gender diverse identities, belonging to community rather than to clinicians.

Our page on Sistergirls and Brotherboys · From Gender-affirming care

Deep, sustained passions that bring energy and expertise. We use the term deliberately, and we ask about yours.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional) · also on ADHD · also on Autism

The medication family used for OCD, typically at higher doses and for longer than in depression. Prescribed by a GP or psychiatrist; we do not prescribe.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

The two most commonly prescribed antidepressant families. Prescribed by a GP or psychiatrist. We do not prescribe, but we work alongside those who do.

From Depression & Low Mood

The first phase: sleep, safety, grounding, and enough resource to do the rest. Often the longest phase, and never wasted time.

From Trauma & PTSD

Self-stimulatory behaviour: rocking, flapping, humming, fidgeting, repeating sounds. Regulating, expressive, and yours to keep.

From Autism

The two families of ADHD medication. Prescribed by a psychiatrist or, in some circumstances, a GP. We do not prescribe, but we work alongside those who do.

From ADHD

Subjective Units of Disturbance. A 0 to 10 rating of how upsetting the memory feels right now, used to track change.

From EMDR therapy

An assessment, aligned with WPATH SOC8, that confirms a person understands and can consent to a gender-affirming surgery and has support to recover. It is not a test of gender.

Surgery readiness assessments

The specific memory, image or moment chosen to work on in a session.

From EMDR therapy

Short for trans, gender diverse and non-binary.

TransHub (opens in a new tab)

The financial and practical cost of ADHD: fees, replacements, missed refunds, impulse buys, and the time spent recovering from all of it.

From ADHD

The belief that thinking something is morally equivalent to doing it, or makes it more likely. A central OCD mechanism.

From OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder)

Difficulty sensing time passing, estimating how long things take, or feeling a future deadline as real until it is imminent.

From ADHD

Working in small doses, and moving deliberately between difficult material and safety, rather than diving in.

From Trauma & PTSD

An approach that assumes trauma may be present and builds choice, safety and control into how care is delivered, rather than a specific technique.

From Trauma & PTSD

Care that assumes anyone may have lived through trauma, puts safety, choice and collaboration first, and avoids causing harm again.

Blue Knot Foundation (opens in a new tab)

A clinical shorthand for not having responded to two adequate medication trials. It describes a treatment history, not a person, and it is not a dead end.

From Depression & Low Mood

A cue that sets off the response. Often ordinary and specific: a smell, a tone, a date in the calendar.

From Trauma & PTSD

The educational label, mostly used for children. Most 2e adults were never given it and are recognising the pattern retrospectively.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

The educational term for performing below measured ability. Historically treated as a motivation problem rather than a signal to investigate.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional)

The cumulative effect of repeated exposure to other people's trauma through work. Real, and not a sign you are bad at your job.

From Trauma & PTSD

Validity of Cognition. A 1 to 7 rating of how true the positive belief feels.

From EMDR therapy

The time you must hold hospital cover before a fund will pay for a treatment. It is often 12 months, including for pre-existing conditions.

privatehealth.gov.au (opens in a new tab)

Discrimination on the basis of body size, including within healthcare. A documented barrier to diagnosis and a driver of disordered eating in its own right.

From Eating & Body Concerns

An approach that treats health behaviours and psychological wellbeing without weight change as the goal. What we practise here.

From Eating & Body Concerns

The range in which you can feel something without being overwhelmed or shutting down. Processing stays inside it.

From EMDR therapy · also on Trauma & PTSD

The mental scratchpad. Another frequent dip, and a major reason capable people lose track mid-task.

From 2/3e (Twice & Thrice Exceptional) · also on ADHD

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health's Standards of Care, version 8, published in 2022. The international reference point for trans health care.

From Gender-affirming care