About

my background

A Passion To See Others Heal

I am a registered Counselling Psychologist (HPCSA Reg. No. 0095095). Having completed my Masters degree in Counselling Psychology at Stellenbosch University in 2006, I went on to gain extensive experience in the field, completing my internship at the Stellenbosch Provincial Hospital.  The topic of my thesis was “resilience in families of husbands with prostate cancer”, which has since been widely published. The research required of me to complete my thesis amplified my knowledge of family systems, and enhanced my therapeutic skills when working with families experiencing difficulties.

Employed as a psychologist for the Department of Corrections in New Zealand for seven years, my role involved psychological and risk assessments, individual and group treatment, as well as training and supervision of programme facilitators.  In addition, I developed and presented workshops to prison and probation staff on managing offenders’ challenging behaviours.  Working with high risk offenders offered me the opportunity to enhance my therapeutic skills due to the complexities of working with offenders, not only because of their criminal propensities, but their associated mental health difficulties.

I have been in private practice for well over a decade now.

My experience in private practice includes assessment and treatment of children, adolescents, adults and couples over a wide variety of personal, social and professional difficulties. My experience in psychological assessment includes psycho-educational, personality, risk, and neuropsychological assessment.

My therapeutic orientation is rooted in Person-Centred Therapy (Carl R. Rogers).  In order to meet the individual needs of my clients, I draw on techniques from Behaviour Therapy, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, depending on the problem at hand.  These techniques are introduced in collaboration with my clients.