Sonia Neale, author of The Bad Mother's Revenge and Death by Teenager

Welcome to my website

Hello, I'm Sonia Neale, author, freelance writer, former radio spot presenter, mother of three, facilitator of a Tobacco Free programme and peer support worker for a mental health organisation in Western Australia, passionate protester to save rare bushland in Kingsley Western Australia, a Friend of Yellagonga Regional Park and campaign fighter for the rights of consumers for 18 sessions (now cut to ten) of Medicare funded psychology sessions.

I've finally dusted the cobwebs off my website and plan to write a fortnightly blog and monthly book review starting January 2012 starting with Stephen King's new book 11.22.63, my first Stephen King read since 1999.

My two books, The Bad Mother's Revenge (available from 13.12.2011) and Death by Teenager (available now) were originally published by ABC Books (now Harper Collins) and are for sale as e-books through Amazon, Angus and Robertson, Borders and Kobo (see left hand side of screen) and from the Apple iStore application.

Regarding Medicare Access to Psychologists, Social Workers and OT's, there is a link below to the Action Group GetUp. This is the group who placed 4000 candles spelling out “FUND HOPE FOR MENTAL HEALTH” on the lawns of Parliament House and gained the attention and respect of the Federal Minister for Mental Health, Mark Butler and a link to a petition set up by psychologist Ben Mullings to be presented to the Minister for Mental Health, Mark Butler, a facebook page with well over 1000 members, an on-line ABC article and an ABC720 radio interview with Ben Mullings and myself on ABC720 Perth, Western Australian radio.

GetUp Action Campaign
Go Petition Campaign
Facebook Group - Better Access to Psychologists
ABC News Story May 28th, 2011

My website was written by my Aussie ex-pat childhood friend, The Friendly Webguru or FWG as I like to call her. When I needed a website in a hurry last year, she created this professional site for me within a week.

I also write a therapy blog called "Therapy Unplugged" on Psych Central, the internet's largest and oldest independent mental health network, providing reliable, trusted information and self-help support communities since 1994. Psych Central gets over 400,000 hits a month. Time magazine voted Psych Central as one of the Top 50 websites of 2008.

Feel free to contact me about my books, therapy blog, life, the Universe or anything else.

Cheers Sonia

February Book of the Month - The Versace Sisters

I love discovering new authors and their books.

Last week, after a hernia repair operation the month before, I had a wound breakdown and a collection of fluid behind the wound formed a sinus tract to the surface and chose the most inopportune moment to split and burst. One and a half litres of haemoserous fluid burst out and onto the pavement where I was standing waving goodbye to my nerdy, socially phobic sixteen year old son on the first day of his last year at High School.

January Book of the Month - 11.22.63

After trying to get into a very lackluster book with cardboard cut-out characters, I gave up and downloaded (we don’t buy books anymore) Stephen King’s latest offering 11.22.63 (or as we say in Australia 22.11.63) and discovered even more one dimensional characters.

It’s not a patch on the first ten books he wrote, destined to become classics. But as always read it for yourself, and don’t just take my opinion for gospel. In short, it’s a story of sliding doors. If you could go back in time and change the course of history would you?

My Blog - The Release of Yoga

I used to think yoga was far too esoteric and inaccessible to the average mortal and so I never explored this possibility but undoubtedly the best thing I have ever done for myself is invest money, motivation, time and effort into trying it to see if it would work. I don’t try to understand the difficult philosophies or the history behind it; I simply tried it and found that it helped me cope with the grind of daily life by calming my brain and chilling me out.

My Blog - The Games We Play

I had to punish my youngest son the other day, for being continually rude to his father, and seeing as how a good whack to the back of the head is now considered politically, socially, psychologically and morally incorrect, I decided instead to cut off his oxygen supply and reason for living - by disconnecting the computer modem and taking it to work with me.

My kids only have two states of mind. Veging out on endless, mindless computer games and MSN - or sheer, unadulterated, mind-numbing boredom.