https://www.facebook.com/105389532583111/

Your Future Psychologist

Home
Australia
Sydney, NSW
Your Future Psychologist

Directions

Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Your Future Psychologist, Mental Health Service, Sydney.

04/07/2026

I spent three days in a room full of geneticists. Here’s what actually stuck.

For years, twin studies put the genetic contribution to lifespan at around 20-25% - mostly down to lifestyle and luck. A new analysis out of Leiden University Medical Center (the same group behind the Leiden Longevity Study) revisited that number, and once they separated deaths from accidents and illness from deaths driven by ageing itself, the genetic contribution came out closer to 50%. More than double the earlier estimate.

Sleep disruption might not just be a symptom of one condition. It looks like it’s a thread running through several - depression, eating disorders and more. (Sheridan, Pain, Watson, Herle et al., medRxiv preprint, 2025.) Which means working on your sleep isn’t just self-care - it might be doing more than one job at once.

And the one that needs zero genetics degree to use: every extra 1,000 steps a day is linked to a 9% lower risk of depression, based on a review of 33 studies and 96,000+ adults. (Bizzozero-Peroni et al., JAMA Network Open, 2024.)

26/06/2026

Last day in Amsterdam. And the session I was most excited for wasn’t about a gene at all - it was about how we talk about them.

There was a whole plenary on behaviour genetics as a public science: the misunderstandings, the ethics, the responsibility of putting this stuff into the world. Because getting the science right is only half the job - a finding that’s communicated badly doesn’t just fail to help, it can do real harm. (Which is, not so secretly, the entire reason this account exists.)

The nugget I can’t stop thinking about: there’s more than one ‘type’ of depression. Researchers are finding it splits into stable subtypes, each with its own genetic and health signature. It was never one thing - which might be exactly why one treatment never fits everyone. So if yours hasn’t worked yet, that’s not you failing. It might just be the wrong match.

That’s the thread through this whole week, really. So much of how our minds work is written in - and understanding the why takes the shame out of the how. I’m leaving with a full notebook and a head full of new questions.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a banquet with my name on it.

25/06/2026

Day two in Amsterdam, running on questionable amounts of Dutch coffee and an embarrassing number of questions.

Here’s the thread running through today’s talks: there’s no such thing as a standard brain. The same label - anxiety, ADHD, autism, depression - can look quite different from one person to the next. Different signs, different timing, different story. And often a lot of the why sits in our genes.

The one I’m here for: why so many of us are diagnosed late. There’s growing work on adult ADHD and autism, especially in women, and why it gets missed for so long.

It feels like so much of mental health gets framed as something you’re getting wrong. Sitting in these rooms, again and again, it’s the opposite - so much of this is just how we’re wired, and understanding that takes the shame out of it.

Tag someone who only got their answers in adulthood - they might need to read this.

24/06/2026

Hey from Amsterdam, where I’ve swapped my usual week for a room full of people who get as nerdily excited about genes and behaviour as I do. 🤓

I’m here for the Behavioural Genetics Association Annual Meeting - which, if you’re new around here, is where my two worlds collide.

I studied genetics before psychology, and behaviour genetics sits right in the middle: it asks how much of who we are - our anxiety, our moods, the way we think - is shaped by our DNA, and how much by everything life throws at us. (Spoiler: it’s always both.)

So much of mental health gets framed as something you’re getting wrong. Sitting in these rooms is a good reminder that some of it is simply written into us - and that understanding the why takes some of the shame out of the how.

Day one’s line-up: the genetics of anxiety, depression across a lifetime, neurodevelopment, and - my personal favourite - a talk on whether our genes shape how much we actually move. I took that one personally, as a runner.

*this is genuinely my idea of a good time and I’ve made my peace with it.*

Full agenda’s in my bio. I’ll be sharing how today actually unfolds over on stories, plus the rest of the week as it happens.

Wish me luck x

23/06/2026

Quick one for anyone currently mistaking ‘flat’ for ‘failing.’

After a loss (big, small or otherwise), sadness slows you right down - low energy, low motivation, low everything.

It feels like you’ve stopped working. You haven’t. You’re repairing. The pause is the repair, not a detour from it.

23/06/2026

A reframe for the next low day.

We treat sadness as the thing to get rid of. But it usually shows up because something - or someone - mattered to you. 🫶

The ache is roughly the size of the thing you cared about. That’s not weakness. That’s evidence you were all in - and how bloody beautiful is that.

The pause is part of the repair.

23/06/2026

For years I treated sadness like a fault to fix. Feel it, name it, move on - ideally before lunch. 🥗

Turns out it’s not a glitch. After a loss, big or small, sadness hits pause on purpose. Energy drops, the world goes quiet, everything slows. That isn’t you failing. That’s the system rerouting.

The low battery is by design. So are the tears - less a breakdown, more a notification: this mattered, and you need people. Sadness is one of the only emotions that’s basically a built-in ‘I can’t do this alone.’

And the bit worth holding onto: sadness is a wave. It rises, crests, and passes. Depression is when the tide just stays up. Same low mood, very different shape - one moves through you, the other moves in.

23/06/2026

This one’s for everyone who’s ever said ‘it’s fine’ through a clenched jaw. 🙄

Politeness is brilliant at keeping the peace and terrible at keeping score. Anger keeps score.

It’s usually been biting its tongue for a while before it finally speaks up - which is exactly why it’s worth listening to, not apologising for.

23/06/2026

Quick one for the chronic over-apologisers. 🙋🏻‍♀️

Anger gets filed under ‘bad behaviour,’ so we spend years managing it down.

But underneath most anger is a boundary that just got crossed. It isn’t there to embarrass you - it’s there to guard you.

The skill isn’t silencing it. It’s listening before it has to shout.

Address

Sydney, NSW

Website

facebook.com

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Your Future Psychologist posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.