Muriel Cooper
Psychologist in Mornington

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The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. Be careful how you talk to yourself.

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Don't leave it too late to take action on your stress. Be alert for warning signs, so stress doesn't get out of control.

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Be mindful, stay present and keep your composure. Don't panic. It will pass.

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A healthy sense of self-control is very important to physical and mental health.

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The mind is the observer. Saying “It's my brain doing that, it is not me,” can set you free.

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A great deal of our mental unwellness begins with stress, which becomes anxiety and depression.

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Our survival brain is on overdrive. It’s easier to be happy when we calm it down and are mindfully present.

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Anxiety comes out in the body. You may control your thoughts, but stress and anxiety will still affect your body. Care for your body.

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If someone is there ask them to hug you and soothe you. If there is no one there, hug and soothe yourself.

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Muriel Cooper, Psychologist

Muriel Cooper

I'm Muriel Cooper, a fully registered psychologist in Mornington, specialising in Stress, Anxiety and Depression.

The Talking Room serves clients on Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula.

About my therapy. I specialise in Stress, Anxiety and Depression (the SAD cycle), but I also deal with most psychological and emotional problems.

I use Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Psychotherapy, Hypnotherapy, and psycho-education (knowledge is power!). Presently I'm most interested in Mindfulness and brain-based therapy - teaching you techniques based on using your mind to train your brain. I'm also interested in Meditation and Relaxation.

I regularly write articles and newsletters on these subjects, I run workshops and classes on 'Mindfulness and Brain Training' and I'm also available as a public speaker. If you are interested in these areas of mental health, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter. Subscription is free, there is no obligation, you can unsubscribe at any time, your privacy is protected and I do not include any advertisments for any products or services in my newsletters.

Contact me to make an appointment. Here are my fees and services, and here is information on Medicare rebates. Call your fund for details of health insurance rebates.

I welcome your input into this web site and invite you to contact me by email or make a comment on the site. All comments are hosted only on this site and are not broadcast or distributed to any other comment stream. All your contributions are valued as long as they're relevant to the point and aren't aggressive (please). We can all learn from each other.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you find the material on this site helpful.

Getting through Christmas

Man showing stress of Christmas

It's not just family friction that causes problems at Xmas.

Family issues are still there for many (here's more about coping with Christmas), but that's not the only Xmas related problem. Take the word Xmas. As you read this, you might be fuming that I even used the shortened form of the word. Yet the early Christians used it frequently. Here's what Grammarly has to say:

"Chi (or X) is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ. In the early days of the Christian church, Christians used the letter X as a secret symbol to indicate their membership in the church to others. If you know the Greek meaning of X, Xmas and Christmas essentially mean the same thing: Christ + mas = Christmas."

Thanks, Grammarly. Hopefully that's one problem out of the way.

Next, there are dietary problems. If you're a vegan or a vegetarian, the food at Christmas is a nightmare. It's a meat-lovers paradise, and even the Christmas pudding has suet (beef fat) in it. To alleviate dietary stress, here are a few tips. Be assertive; kindly and firmly stick to your nutritional choices. Bring your own, including a slice of Xmas pudding; if they love you, they won't mind. If it's a serve-yourself, you're home and hosed. Hog the roast potatoes and veggies (they're usually cooked in vegetable oil these days), and there's always bread.

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