Milestone: 100,000 reads on Psychology Today✨

I’m grateful my Psychology Today writing resonates with so many. My goal is simple: make psychological science useful, humane, and affirming.

🔗www.psychologytoday.com/au/contributors/joyce-vr...

Gaslighting Doesn’t Break the Weak: It Disorients the Strong Narcissism and gaslighting target empathy, insight, and openness. Survivors are strong, capable, intelligent people, and healing will restore confidence in one's own reality.

Gaslighting doesn’t break the weak — it disorients the strong.

Empathy, insight, and openness are often exploited, not lacking.

New piece for @PsychToday 👇

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#Gaslighting #Narcissism #TraumaRecovery

The Mental Illness Recovery Paradox We expect relief after a mental health crisis but many feel shame instead. This “Recovery Paradox” can quietly stall healing long after acute symptoms fade.

My psychology Today article — selected as an Essential Read.

➡️ The Recovery Paradox: Why Shame Gets Worse as You Get Better
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

I hope it brings validation to anyone navigating recovery or supporting someone who is.

It Is Possible to Thrive After Psychosis — I Am Proof Personal Perspective: The narrative about psychosis recovery is incomplete. Many people heal, rebuild, and thrive. My story is proof.

I share my lived & professional experience and hope about post-psychosis recovery in my latest @PsychToday article.

🔗 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#Psychosis #PsychoticDepression #MentalHealth #Recovery #Hope #EndTheStigma

crunchies cause autism.
Breakfasts cause mornings.
Umbrellas cause rain.

(Correlation ≠ causation. Even if the president says so.)

Whose Ladder Do We Climb? Equity requires rethinking our narrow, staged model of career progression—a system built around the “ideal” worker and blind to diverse strengths and developmental tracks.

Most orgs reward the coder, not the connector in early career - often overlooking talent that might shine later.

👉 Read my latest article: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#PsychologyToday #Leadership #Careers #Equity #SoftSkills

My @psychologytoday.com article on why we still reward code over care is now amongst the top 6 most-read pieces on the platform internationally 🎉

👉 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#SoftSkills #Bias #Workplace #career #gender

Soft Skills, Hard Truths From coding to caregiving, society skews which talents matter and are compensated. The hard truth is that "soft" skills are crucial.

My Psychology Today article Soft Skills, Hard Truths has been selected as an Essential Read in both the Career & Gender sections 🏆.
👉 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#SoftSkills #Career #Gender

From coding to people management, society skews which skills matter. Assigned value mirrors socially constructed hierarchies of gender, race, and culture.

My latest #PsychologyToday article:

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/divergent-minds/202509/soft-skills-hard-truths

#Workplace #selfesteem

Autism Diagnosis: Too Much Looking and Too Little Listening? Autism assessment still often leaves lived experience unheard and unseen by focusing almost exclusively on outwardly observable behaviours.

Autism is still diagnosed by looking - focused on external behaviours - not including internal experience.
Honoured my new @psychologytoday.com article has been promoted to an Essential Read.
psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#Autism #Neurodiversity

📚 Love literature reviews? Our team is looking for Research Assistant (casual, Oct start) to join a project in developmental computational psychology. Must have Australian working rights.
📩 Contact: jvromen@csu.edu.au

#Research #Psychology #AcademicJobs

a months worth of pottery fails and bloopers 🥴 #pottery #ceramics #fail #satisfying TikTok video by brettwulc

As a potter I love this video 👐 🎨 tiktok.com/@brettwulc/v...

Clay collapses. Therapy sessions derail. Academic papers get rejected.

Not failure - feedback. Hold it lightly → grow stronger.

#FailForward #NonAttachment

The Pain of Not Belonging Belonging isn’t a luxury, it’s a human need. Exclusion can hurt like physical pain, but small acts of inclusion can heal. Are we building places where people feel at home?

With DEI rollbacks & anti-immigration rallies, belonging matters now more than ever.

📰 Check out my latest @PsychToday article on belonging: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

#Belonging #Inclusion

Valuing women’s work Achieving gender equality is possible if we admit to past mistakes and tackle the mental load

"Will women ever stand on equal economic footing with men, and what would it take to equalize domestic labor … in the home? … Two new books … provide clear steps forward."

Read the #ScienceBooks Review of Patriarchy Inc. and What’s on Her Mind: https://scim.ag/4mqvxbP

✨ Calling practising psychologists! I’m forming a working group to co-create a strengths- & gender-inclusive framework for adult autism assessment.

We’ll work towards a conceptual research paper + practical clinician tools. Interested? DM me to connect.

#Autism #Neurodiversity

Brain-wide representations of prior information in mouse decision-making - Nature Brain-wide recordings in mice reveal that prior expectations are distributed through recurrent loops across all levels of cortical and subcortical processing.

Research translations for practising psychologists

✨ Did you know your client may actually perceive the world differently?

New Nature paper shows that prior expectations are represented across the whole brain 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Neuroscience #Psychology #MentalHealth

👉 If you’ve made a post-PhD career transition, I’d love to hear: where did you end up?

My interviewees’ journeys are colourful and inspiring - full of doubt, strength, growth, value and new possibilities.

#PhD #BeyondAcademia #CareerPathways

When I finished my PhD, I felt unsure where my skills fit beyond academia. Since then, I’ve worked across govt, health, non-profit & private practice. The past year, I interviewed PhDs who’ve taken paths into policy, business, data science & more.

#BeyondAcademia #CareerPathways #PHD

Celebrate Social Sciences Week Every September Social Sciences Week celebrates and showcases the diverse range of social sciences disciplines and research in Australia.

It is @SocSciWeek 2025! From 8–14 September, we celebrate social sciences in Australia.
👉 socialsciencesweek.org.au

#ssw2025 #SocialSciences #Research

I am excited to share I have launched the Cognition in Health & Illness (CHI) Lab at Charles Sturt University.

Our research looks at how cognitive processes influence mental health and illness, with a focus on bridging research and clinical practice.

👉 joycevromen.com/CHI_lab/

A Strengths-Based Approach to Neurodiversity Our thinking still focuses primarily on deficits and those behaviors and cognitions that people with autism or ADHD cannot perform as well as neurotypical individuals.

A golden oldie ✨ My first @psychologytoday.com post, A Strengths-Based Approach to Neurodiversity, has now surpassed 17,000 reads.

Its message still rings true: when we shift from deficits-only to include strengths, people can truly thrive.

👉 www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/dive...

These are the faces of immigration: my Australian kids with a Dutch mother and a Turkish father, who’ve also lived in the UK. Where do they belong then? Immigration is about real people, families, and lives - not the scary abstractions painted by recent anti-immigration rallies in Australia.

The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report shows gender parity remains a distant goal. Progress is happening, but painfully slow for too many around the world.

Motherhood and Achievement Amnesia When women pause for motherhood, it’s not their brilliance and potential that fades, it’s the world’s memory of it.

🚨 Just out and chosen as Essential Read by #PsychologyToday

Amnesia of Achievement - When women become mothers, the world forgets their brilliance and abilities. 🌱 Intelligence isn’t lost. We just stop seeing it.

👉 www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

🧠 Connection between therapist & client is often paramount to progress. 3 reads that explore the heart (and humour) of therapeutic relationships:
📘 The Gift of Therapy – Irvin Yalom
📘 Maybe You Should Talk to Someone – Lori Gottlieb
📘 What Women Want – Maxine Mei-Fung Chung

My latest psychology today article 'Workplace Desire' is amongst the 6 most popular articles on the platform currently. It seems to have struck a nerve!

www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/dive...

Fun with the latest ChatGPT trend - action figure doll inspired by oneself. Sparkles, clipboard, coffee & chaos included💫.

Because being a psychologist, researcher, mental health client, and a mum of twins is nothing short of superhero work ;)

Though, waist? 12-year-olds?

Workplace Desire Sexual tension at work is the unspoken force many feel, but few name. It lingers in glances, rewrites your emails, and makes you question your outfit choices.

In my latest piece for Psychology Today, I explore the messy, very human dynamics of workplace desire - through the lens of power, silence, workplace culture, & emotional literacy: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

The Motherhood Penalty and the Fatherhood Competence Gap Mothers face career setbacks, while caregiving fathers are isolated. Breaking gendered biases with equal leave and support arrangements will progress gender equity.

In my latest #PsychologyToday article, I explore how outdated #SocietalExpectations continue to fail #parents of all #genders - and why moving towards real change is long overdue. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dive...

Our new UQ study investigates the lived experience of parents/carers who have supported a young person who has transitioned from Child/Youth Eating Disorder Services to Adult Eating Disorder services. Please RT or participate. See: exp.psy.uq.edu.au/eatingdisord...