 So what's this doing to our mental health? Well, Emmie Golding is a psychologist and she's the founder of the Workplace Mental Health Institute. She's been helping clients who are struggling with the isolation. Fear, stress, anxiety, depression. I'm seeing the whole range of things. So we've got students who are not sure if they can return to study. They're stressed about whether they're going to fall behind their peers and what that's going to mean for their future career prospects. Got people who I work with who have lost family members and haven't been able to return back home to attend funeral and be with extended family at that point in time. So obviously it's incredibly distressing for people. And I'm seeing, you know, we're getting so many more calls for people asking for help than we ever have before. So it's a really difficult situation for so many Australians. Yeah. Well, one in three Australians is born overseas. So that's a lot of people potentially in this boat not being able to get home to see family and friends. Or do the border closures affect the rest of us too, even if it's just a case of not being able to plan your next holiday? Absolutely. And not being able to plan your next holiday sounds trivial in comparison to some of the other situations that people are facing. But it's really not because from a psychological perspective, it's about my ability to set goals, to be in charge of my life, that sense of control that is so important for us as human beings, for our psychological health. So when we don't have control over our life, we get this sense of helplessness. And then when we don't know how long that's going to last for with all the uncertainty, when the restriction is going to be lifted, then we get hopelessness. So it's not just the family member connection, it's also being able to plan and being in charge. That freedom is such a core human value for so many people. And this virus, of course, is with us potentially for years. That's a long-term problem we're facing, isn't it? Exactly. And we don't seem to have long-term strategies as a society as to how we're going to handle that. We know that we can pull together for a short period of time as individuals and as groups. But when it's sustained, this sustained level of stress and anxiety and uncertainty and tension is really, it doesn't bode well for mental health at all. So you say that part of the difficulty is about a lack of control. Yes. What course of action can we take in the face of a lack of control that's mandated by a disease and the state? Well, at an individual level, it's about planning what we can. How are we regaining that sense of control by saying, I might have had this sort of list of objectives for 2020 or ideas on what I wanted to do this year. And now that looks like it's not going to be possible, at least not in the way that I had originally planned. So how can I rethink this and still achieve what I wanted in a different way? Or what else can I do instead so that I can still get this sense of progression, of moving forward with things? Because we know that it's important for us as humans to have goals, to be able to move forward. So it's getting the right balance between being kind to yourself if you don't achieve everything that you wanted to, but also moving forward where you can. And you're talking to me from Spain. So are you living this experience yourself? Yes, absolutely. I was over here for business in Europe earlier this year. It was meant to be a couple of months. And when everything happened, we made the call to stay put and went through the lockdown in Spain, which was one of the strictest in the world. It was very, very challenging. And while I was in Spain talking with people in Australia, at that point, they didn't have quite the same level of restriction. So they said, oh, we're in lockdown too. And I thought, well, not quite the same. And now it's reversed in a lot of ways. So I'm very careful when I'm talking with friends who are in Victoria in particular, but also some of the other hot spots as well, not to make it too uncomfortable for them, because we are in a slightly easier situation at the moment here. Amy Golding, thank you for speaking with us. You're very welcome. Thank you.