About
The Site Author
Author: Andrew Gunner
Qualifications:
- Honours Science Degree: Applied Mathematics (BSc. Hons.),
- Social Work Degree (BSW),
- Social Work Master’s Degree by Research (MSW).
Experience:
- Worked briefly at the Bureau of Meteorology; my applied maths study qualified me to become a climate scientist,
- Worked in a geophysics research team in Antarctic waters on a ship, the USNS Eltanin,
- Worked for a petrol company and a petrochemical company for 20 years as an operations researcher, using maths and computers to guide decision-making,
- Demonstrated from a rubber raft during the Franklin River Blockade,
- Studied social work,
- Worked as a counsellor for 17 years, including ten years as an addiction counsellor, working with problem gamblers,
- Completed a master’s degree by research into the way I worked with clients,
- Article published in the Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy,
- Volunteered for a climate-solutions think tank, and
- Developed this website, starting in 2009.
Gunner (2002). “Problem gambling development and recovery: A reflective counsellor’s practical construction based on feedback”. (Unpublished master’s thesis). The University of Melbourne.
Gunner (2006), “Feedback Loops in Clinical Practice: An Integrative Framework”. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, September 2006, Volume 27, Number 3, Pages 143-152.
Site Purpose
- Urge action on climate change, and
- present “amplifying feedback” as a tool for understanding climate change and as a general organising principle suitable for use in counselling.
Amplifying feedback in problem development
As a counsellor, I sometimes talked to clients about how their attempts to escape from difficulties often made those difficulties worse. For example, a woman could:
- experience problems in her marriage,
- escape to the pokies for a safe, peaceful time out and distraction, leading to
- money losses, which
- exacerbated problems in her marriage, which led to more gambling.
A vicious cycle like this tends to escalate the relationship problems, the gambling, and the gambling losses.
| More escape to gambling |
| More gambling losses |
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| More relationship problems |
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People can get stuck in compulsive habits that escalate. Here are webpages describing (1) a counselling session in which I used these ideas with a client, and (2) a systems theory–based understanding of human behaviour that emerged from my counselling work.
The introduction to my counselling pages includes:
- Links to the other counselling pages, including those describing how this approach relates to other counselling practices and theories, see the top of the introduction page
- References for all the counselling pages, at the end of the introduction page.
Amplifying feedback in climate change
Amplifying feedback is also a critical part of climate change, so this site describes some feedback loops that threaten our livable climate, e.g., the permafrost feedback cycle:
| Higher global temperatures | More melting of permafrost | |
| More greenhouse gases | More CO2 and methane in the atmosphere |
Amplifying feedback in recovery
Understanding the vicious feedback loops that tend to escalate a problem is a diagnosis and can be helpful. (The problem can be problem gambling or global heating.) However, the critical task is to address the problem by fostering virtuous feedback loops that foster hope and drive recovery. So, this site emphasises vision, progress, and benefits, a trio that can form a self-reinforcing causal cycle:
| More progress toward the vision |
| More Benefits |
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| More commitment to the vision |
While this dynamic is dominant, (1) more commitment to a vision leads to (2) more progress toward the vision, leading to (3) more benefits that lead to (4) an increased commitment.
The site name: Feedback Reigns
The broad relevance of feedback to climate change, human functioning, and more led to this website’s name: “feedback reigns”.
Contact
To contact me, please see the Contact Page.
If you have constructive comments about this site, please let me know.
Distributing this information
If you find this web page useful, consider letting others know about it, e.g., via social media.
You can republish, adapt or translate the content of this site by including a reference to this site.
Updated 4 January 2026
One Reply to “About”
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Andrew – thank you for your efforts. There is a lot of highly useful information here and, having just discovered your site, I will, I’m sure, become a regular visitor.