Lakeside Rooms

01/04/2026

Animal-Assisted Therapy with Skyla at Lakeside Rooms

Meet Skyla, a calm and gentle Staffy who helps to reduce stress and lower anxiety for clients at Lakeside Rooms.

Therapy at Lakeside Rooms is about creating a space where people can feel calm and supported. For many clients that first step into therapy can feel daunting, especially those who are navigating stress, trauma, or emotional difficulties. That’s where Skyla and Matt come in.

Skyla has been carefully trained to support therapy sessions in a calm and grounded way.
Skyla works alongside Matt to help clients regulate their emotions, engage in mindfulness, and feel more at ease when processing difficult experiences. Skyla’s involvement aligns with research that highlights the benefits of integrating animals into therapeutic work. Studies have shown that human-animal interaction can reduce physiological stress markers, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and cortisol, while increasing oxytocin, the hormone associated with trust and bonding (Beetz et al., 2012). These neurobiological effects can foster a state of safety and openness, allowing clients to engage more deeply in therapy (Brandão et al., 2025).

Read more: https://www.lakesiderooms.com.au/blog/animal-assisted-therapy

25/03/2026

Help Your Child Cope With Change: Useful Support for Parents

Change is just part of life, but for young children, it can feel confusing, scary, and way bigger than we realise. Kids depend so much on routines, predictability, and the grown-ups they trust to feel safe and secure. So when something shifts like a new schedule, a new environment, or a big life change, it can shake that sense of safety for them. From a child psychology point of view, this reaction is completely normal, even if it feels worrying as a parent.

Adults can usually tell someone when they’re feeling stressed, but kids don’t always have the words for it yet. Instead, their stress often shows up in their behaviour, big emotions, or even physical complaints like tummy aches or headaches.

This article is here to offer practical, easy-to-follow support for parents of children aged 10 years and under, using trusted ideas from child psychology and child psychiatry.

Read more: https://www.lakesiderooms.com.au/blog/is-your-child-struggling-with-change

13/03/2026

If you've ever been told to love yourself and thought, "I don't even like myself?!" – then this is for you!

Loving yourself doesn't mean high self-esteem or even feeling good about yourself.

You just have to try to treat yourself with the same respect you'd give your BFF. Here's how!

13/03/2026

04/03/2026

03/03/2026

Navigating through more than just ordinary sadness? Depression is a common experience and it's crucial to know the signs 🧠

Take note of some of the symptoms described below 👇

Don't hesitate to seek help from a medical professional if these symptoms become severe or persist after 2 or more weeks. Your emotional well-being is important! 🧡

Follow this link to discover more in our informative factsheet 👉 https://bit.ly/4cKgQv2

03/03/2026

25 Years of Trusted Care at Lakeside Rooms

2026 marks 25 years of Lakeside Rooms proudly supporting the Gold Coast and wider community with care you can trust and compassion you can feel.

"Trust has been the foundation of Lakeside Rooms and it continues to inspire and shape the care we offer every day.” – Terri & Deb, Clinical Psychologists & Co-Directors

Since 2001, Lakeside Rooms has built a leading reputation for professional and compassionate mental health care across the Gold Coast and broader communities.

Lakeside Rooms was the first multidisciplinary private mental health practice in the region. The practice was established even before Medicare funding was available for psychology services.

Independent practitioners working from the Lakeside Rooms offer a comprehensive range of services, including individual therapy for anxiety, depression and life transitions, couples counselling, family support, group programs, and psychological assessments. Every practitioner provides personalised care, tailoring treatment to each client’s unique needs and goals within a respectful and confidential environment.

Read More: https://www.lakesiderooms.com.au/blog/25-years-of-trusted-care

18/02/2026

When couples can’t hold both emotion and reason inside themselves, the relationship tries to “assign” the roles during conflict. One person gets labeled as “too much” (or “crazy”) and the other gets labeled as “cold.” But most of the time, it’s not about character. It’s about nervous systems trying to find safety.

If this is your dynamic, the work is learning to stay emotionally present without escalating, and to stay logical without disconnecting. Name what’s happening, slow it down, validate the feeling underneath the reaction, and reach for each other from the softer place. This is where security starts to form. 💚🪴

17/02/2026

A Useful Self Help Strategy

The 5 senses grounding technique is something you use when your mind feels like it’s running away from you.

That might be when:

You feel anxious or panicky

You’re overthinking and can’t stop

You feel overwhelmed

You start dissociating or feeling “not here”

You’re stuck replaying something stressful

Your emotions feel bigger than your ability to handle them

*Why it helps:*

When you're anxious, your brain shifts into threat mode. It starts focusing on “what ifs,” worst-case scenarios, or intense feelings. Grounding works because it gently tells your brain:

“I’m here. I’m safe. I’m in the present.”

By focusing on your five senses, you shift attention away from racing thoughts and back to your body and environment. That calms your nervous system.

*When to use it (simple rule)*

Use 5 senses grounding when:

Your thoughts feel louder than reality

Your body feels activated (racing heart, tight chest, shallow breathing)

You feel disconnected from your surroundings

You need to interrupt a spiral

You don’t have to wait until you're at a 10/10 panic. It works best when you notice you're starting to climb.

*What it’s not for*

It’s not about:

Solving the problem

Making feelings disappear

Forcing yourself to be positive

It’s just about stabilizing yourself enough to think clearly again.

The core idea

We’re not trying to control your thoughts.
We’re helping your nervous system settle so your thoughts naturally slow down.

17/02/2026

Boundaries and belonging exist together, but how this works is something that takes loads of experience.

Children can’t learn respectful, kind, strong boundaries without someone who has modelled this over and over. It doesn’t have to be perfect every time, just enough times.

The presence kids and teens need from us is one that is warm AND strong. Love and leadership. They need both in the one person.

Strength without warmth will be experienced as controlling or bullying. Disagreement will come to mean rejection. To avoid rejection, they might be more likely to people please, say yes when they mean no, or denying their truth.

Warmth without strength will be experienced as ‘flaky’ or unreliable. If they don’t feel an adult leading, they will be more likely to take the leadership role from the adult. Someone has to fly the plane.

The third option is both - keep the boundary, add the warmth.

Make space for their disagreement, their ‘no’, and, hold the boundary with warmth.

‘Warmth’ doesn’t mean dropping the boundary. It means being kind, and not withdrawing our affection because of their response. It means rejecting the behaviour, not them

‘It’s okay to be angry at me. I won’t listen while you speak like that. Im right here. You’re not in trouble.’

‘I get why you hate this decision. It’s ok to be annoyed with me. I’m not changing my mind.’

‘It’s my job to keep you safe. I know it’s a tough decision and I’m not changing my mind. It’s okay to be angry at me.’

‘I care about you too much to let you do something unsafe. That’s my decision. I expect you’ll have a bit to say about it and that’s okay.’

If the give you information that does change your mind, it’s always ok to do that but make it clear it’s still a decision you’ve made in strength, not because you’ve been worn down: ‘What you said about … makes sense to me. I’d decided to change my mind.‘ OR, ‘Let’s talk about this calmly when you’re ready. What you’ve said about … makes sense to me. I’d like to talk about how we can make this happen in a way that works for both of us.’

This doesn’t have to be perfect - we’ll also reach the end of ourselves sometimes - it just has to be enough.♥️