My story

I’ve always been fascinated by the question, “Why do we do what we do?”

In high school, Psychology wasn’t a subject on offer, but we did have Economics. I was captivated by concepts like ‘supply and demand’ and the factors that seemed to move humans to make the decisions they did.

I enjoyed it so much that following high school, I went on to study Economics at The University. There, I learnt even more about why humans made the decisions they did under different circumstances. It was fascinating.

Towards the end of my studies, I had the opportunity to take an elective in Psychology… Wow.

On learning that my interests lay more in why people did the things they did outside of business, following graduation, I returned to university to study Psychology.

Leading behavioural addiction clinic

Many years later, on graduating with a Masters in Clinical Psychology, I went to work at a leading behavioural addiction clinic at The University of Sydney, The Gambling Treatment & Research Clinic. There, my efforts were focused on helping people struggling with the paradox of repeatedly engaging in behaviours that were causing them great harm.

Over the years, I honed my understanding as to why it was that we repeatedly did things we didn’t want to do – and how to stop it. I was fortunate enough to work closely with the clinic’s founder, Dr Fadi Anjoul. Over the span of more than two decades, Dr Anjoul had created and refined an innovative and masterful approach to behaviour change, focused on the problem of gambling. I went on to become a Senior Clinical Psychologist and Supervisor there.

Towards the end of my time at the university clinic, my days were spent more training the next generation of clinicians than seeing the clients themselves. I loved supervising other clinicians, but my true passion lay in working with the clients themselves.

A small private practice

Years earlier, I had started a small private practice outside of the university clinic for seeing members of the community for ‘broader’ issues (e.g., anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, etc). Every now and then, someone would present to my practice with a ‘bad habit’ they were looking to break. Theoretically, I knew I could apply the key principles from my work at the university clinic to these problems. Ultimately, it was the success I experienced here that led me to develop this clinic. 

habitbreak is all about sharing what I have learnt over the years from my clinical work in behaviour change. The teachings within are for anyone who has ever found themselves repeatedly engaging in a behaviour they would rather not and asking themselves ‘why’.

It turns out that by understanding exactly why we do what we do, points to the very solution.