Coach.Bayliss

05/07/2026

My eldest grandchild, Ms A, is about to turn 18. I'll be buying her a book, Guess how much I love you by Sam McBratney.

The book has a long history in our family. I read it to Ms A's Mum and I read it to her as a small child. In return, she made a card for me and named me the best grandma in the world.

Often thought of as a bedtime story for children, the story also offers something deeply comforting for adults.

I see this little book as a gentle reminder that love can be difficult to measure, yet easy to feel. We often spend our lives trying to prove our worth, count our achievements, or compare ourselves with others. This story quietly suggests that love isn't something to be measured. It is something to be experienced.

Through a bibliotherapy lens, this book invites us to:
📚 Share memories of the people who made us feel loved.
💛 Hold onto hope that loving relationships can grow, even after difficult times.
🤝 Express empathy for the child within ourselves and for those around us.
🌱 Learn that the simplest words can carry the greatest meaning.
👭 Foster friendships and family connections by reading together.

Sometimes the books that heal us are not the longest or the most complex. Sometimes they are the ones that help us slow down, smile, and remember what matters most.

What children's book still warms your heart every time you read it?

04/07/2026

People often ask me, "What book should I read for my mental health?" Sometimes my answer is...

Your own.

Not the story in your head. The story you write.

Journalling is bibliotherapy where you become both the author and the reader.

When you write honestly, you create enough distance to see your own life more clearly.

As you read back over your words, the four stages of bibliotherapy begin to unfold.

Identification.

"I didn't realise I was feeling that."

Catharsis.

The emotion leaves your head and lands safely on the page.

Insight.

Patterns emerge. You begin to see why you keep making the same choices, having the same conversations, or avoiding the same decisions.

Universalisation.

You realise your story is deeply personal, yet profoundly human. Others have walked this path before you, and others will walk it after you.

That is why journalling has remained such a powerful reflective practice for generations.

Not because it records our lives.
Because it helps us understand them.

As a Mental Health Social Work Supervisor, I often encourage reflective writing. It slows our thinking just enough to notice what our busy minds have been racing past.

You don't have to write pages. Start with one question.

"What happened today that taught me something about myself?"

Read your own words with curiosity rather than judgement.

You may discover that the most important book you ever read... is the one you are still writing.

04/07/2026

I am back. My hiatus was due to birthing my 100,000 word PhD thesis that is currently being assessed.

The thesis was on psychoeducation and bibliotherapy. I produced a self-help book for those of us in the mental health field as part of the process.

I am open to online supervision again...and seeing all my beloved friends and colleagues. M###xx

-Care

06/12/2025

Write the New Year goal or word down now. You can't start the year with impact if you haven't practised.

I have two words I'm working on, and today, I write them at the top of every page of my notebook.

Go. Don't wait.

👵🎓 Megan Bayliss. Mental Health Social Work Supervisor. PhD candidate: the psychoeducation and bibliotherapy of Brene Brown.

14/02/2025

Find me nowadays over on LinkedIn. Meta has shown its hand so I'm using my feet.

❓️🪦 What's in your dash? That little line between date of birth and death. Read on to discover part of my dash. 👵 I am a Mental Health accredited Social Work supervisor and researcher interested in psychoeducation and bibliotherapy. These interests developed throughout a thirty year ca...

14/01/2025

Book it in for this evening. 6pm Qld time. 7pm daylight savings time. Speed read (or Netflix) to finish "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens. Gorgeous and socially deep book full of nuances, twists and subtext.

We approach our bookclubs through a framework of Bibliotherapy: the use of the written word to help solve a personal problem. Bibliotherapy is a passive form of Psychoeducation and one of the Focused Psychological Strategies allowable under Medicare in Australia. It has four stages and nine steps and I'll seamlessly guide you through them.

Open to all who love books and want to use them as healing tools with yourself or with clients. Come along and share your insights, thoyghts, your assessment and detective skills, while at the same time learning from other's insights into racism, structural inequalities, attachment issues, resistance, post traumatic stress disorder, post traumatic growth and connection over comparison. Be a part of a book discussion that will help stretch and grow you professionallyand personally.

The Zoom link is in this blog post: https://www.coachbayliss.com/blog/read-to-heal-bibliotherapy-at-an-online-book-club

6pm Brisbane. 7pm Daylight saving time. 5.30pm where I am in Northern Territory. 4pm in Perth. 7pm Perth. I think! Check your time against 6pm Brisbane time.

Mental Health Social Workers use it as evidence of self directed learning in the Focused Psychological Strategies for your Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) CPD log.

👵🎓 Megan Bayliss. PhD candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

12/01/2025

Have you got your book on for this Wednesday evening? It is book club time again 💙 Wednesday 15th at 6pm Brisbane time we're going to have a Zoom yarn about Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens...and I want you to join us.

Be in your pyjamas, gardening clothes, underwear: it's neither a fashion parade nor a place of hegemonic judgement. Eat your dinner, sip your wine. We're there to discuss Crawdads and how the story fits into our own lives.

Here's the information and Zoom link https://www.coachbayliss.com/blog/read-to-heal-bibliotherapy-at-an-online-book-club

Read, listen or watch: the important thing is to discuss. That is our activity of bibliotherapy.

👵🎓 Megan Bayliss. PhD candidate: social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

Online Bibliotherapy book club starts in January. Over your end-of-year break, read to heal, learn and grow. Read for purpose. Read dangerously. Read to discuss. Just read to find yourself in a book...and let's have some discussions around whatever the book makes you question, learn or think about.

05/01/2025

If you are a Social Worker doing research then you are eligible to join three other Social Work PhD candidates in an online peer support program.

Every Monday morning at 9.30am Qld time, we meet online to discuss, suggest, help, commiserate and share the journey of being a social worker in research (anywhere from Honours to research in the work place).

Pop on and say hello. Share your struggle, success, confusion or exhiliration. We exist to support each other. All the details and the zoom link are on this blog post: https://www.coachbayliss.com/blog/peer-support-group-for-social-workers-in-higher-degrees-by-research

Hope to see you any Monday morning - today is our first session for 2025.

Love from moi, Doug Boothey BA(Hons) MSW MA(SocWk) and Anne Maree Taney - Author .

Social Work Researchers: Join online weekly, fortnightly, monthly. Doesn't matter where you are or what Uni you are at - we will be online every Monday morning at 9am N.T time, 9.30am QLD time. Talk, write, learn with us: get out of it what you need.

29/12/2024

Open to YOU, join us on Zoom on Wed Jan 15th to discuss Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. This book is one we've done before at book club and was deeply rich in social learning for participants. Using the methodology of bibliotherapy, lets together discuss what this book is about and how it relates to our own lives. All online book club information is in the blog post, including the Zoom link to join us on Jan 15th at 6pm AEST.

Online Bibliotherapy book club starts in January. Over your end-of-year break, read to heal, learn and grow. Read for purpose. Read dangerously. Read to discuss. Just read to find yourself in a book...and let's have some discussions around whatever the book makes you question, learn or think about.

20/12/2024

Social Workers doing PhDs. At our next Peer Support for Social Workers on Higher Research zoom there is a question to respond to:

How is your life and career different during the first Christmas post Doctoral?

Don your Christmas colours and join Anne Maree Taney - Author , Doug Boothey and myself on Monday to discuss.

👵🎓 Megan Bayliss. PhD candidate. Social and cultural resistance to the status quo.

Social Work Researchers: Join online weekly, fortnightly, monthly. Doesn't matter where you are or what Uni you are at - we will be online every Monday morning at 9am N.T time, 9.30am QLD time. Talk, write, learn with us: get out of it what you need.