FAQs

“We may define therapy as a search for value” -Abraham Maslow

Indeed, there may be nothing wrong with you, but needing therapy need not mean that there is. Simply, your life may be calling for a deepening of value, or a point towards the direction where the value already lies, perhaps dormant or hard-to-see at present.

Life was not meant to be smooth waters and what fun would it be if it was. There would be no growth, no surprise, no wonder. It would be a predictable ride ending in death. Sorry to say it so bluntly, but if it was left up to us life would be tiresomely dreary. I agree that one does not always need someone by their side in the form of a therapist, coach, or healer at all times in the journey of life. But here are some clues that may indicate that it is helpful for you right now to receive support:

- You may be going through a time of change. This may be in the form of job changing, moving house or city, shifts in your social dynamics, changes in your body or health. Anytime we deal with change in our lives, things around and within us have to shift to adapt. 

This shift can bring feelings of

• Anxiety
• Sleeplessness
• Depression
• Lack of focus
• Lack of clarity
• Inability to complete tasks and forgetfulness
• Addiction
• Compulsive behaviour

These are all coping mechanisms that we, as human beings, use, but they are not always the healthiest options or for our greatest benefit. Having support at this time will encourage you to find new and creative ways of managing your fluctuating hormones and emotions at this time of change. I hope that it will allow you to develop a welcoming, rather than fear-based, relationship with the changes in your life.

- You may have experienced recent loss or grief

We grieve in interesting and complex ways as human beings. Often, we think of grief as related to the obvious:

• Death of a loved one
• Ending of a long-term relationship
• Divorce

But grief comes from many forms of loss. We may have:

• Had our hopes on a relationship, project, vision working out and it didn’t
• We may have immigrated or moved cities and are grieving the loss of home
• We may be transitioning from one life stage to another and are grieving the end of a period of our lives
• Something in our body or health may have changed and we are grieving the loss of what once was

Grief moves in complex shapes, non-linear, and always brings up other, deeply hidden, parts of our lives and history. Having support at this time allows the process to be experienced in a meaningful way where we can honour what was lost and find new ways of living, being, and even celebrating what now is.

We always tailor-make the process and time-frame according to your needs. 

My hope is that within three months (10-12 sessions) you will already be feeling more 

Optimistic

Creative

Engaged in your life. 

Some clients chose to make use of a stable weekly session for long-term use (more than one year), others make use of weekly sessions until the time where they feel that they want more independence and then chose to have check-in sessions on fortnightly, monthly, or even more irregular basis. It is impossible to determine how long it will take for you, and staying long-term does not make you reliant either, it may just be what you need at that moment in your life. Essentially it is up to you, for I can meet you, but that changes come from what you chose to do with the seeds that we plant together.

I have a Licentiate with teaching (Trinity College of London) and was a teacher for many years before going into therapy. I then qualified with a psychology degree and a Master’s in Drama Therapy (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa) which combines psychology and the use of Expressive Arts. My additional qualifications include a 200RYT in yoga and meditation (Sampoorna Yoga, India), a Level 1 Internal Family System’s training, EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy), membership with the South African Psychoanalytic Society, extensive courses in allied methods, including Craniosacral Therapy, Somatic Therapy, Narrative Therapy, Family Systems and more. Professionally I am a course developer, lecturer, examiner, and supervisor at university level (University of Witwatersrand’s Drama for Life program, South Africa), have served as a therapist and clinical manager at a women’s mental health organization in the United Kingdom (www.noagirls.com), as a therapist for children and families at Eden Schools (www.edenschools.co.za), as an addiction-based therapy at Wedge Gardens Treatment Centre (www.wedgegardens.co.za), and as a leadership-based therapeutic coach in Israel with Ezra World Birthright (www.birthright.org). I have worked with rural communities in Limpopo, South Africa, unemployed migrant groups in Johannesburg, South Africa, and special needs children from underprivileged backgrounds across South Africa. I have also used my world in informal settings and communities in countries including Mexico, India, United States, and Germany.

My area of expertise and absolute joy is being part of people’s process of learning to believe in themselves, see their gifts, and take ownership of their power and overcome their obstacles. My clients are as different from each other as you can imagine, but what they all share is a desire to deeply know themselves, to unblock their mental and psychological patterns, to live with more joy, laughter, more love, more flexibility, to know and become their most true and beautiful version of themselves. These people inspire my practice, and this is the work that I love to be a part of.

“Everybody I’ve seen has come from other therapy, and almost invariably it’s the very same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They’re not really interested in the person, he doesn’t relate to the person. All these things I’ve written so much about. That’s why I’ve made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-reflection and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there”.
- Irvin, D. Yalom, Psychotherapist. 

Yalom’s approach greatly inspires my practice as a therapist. I am anything but aloof and disinterested. I hope to be a real person in an authentic relationship with my clients. I care deeply, I delve into the unique life-story and personality of my clients, I am curious about them and their lives and respond from a place of truth, from myself which certainly has the training and education to do the job, but it is my own life experiences, my unique perspective, my relationship with you that is the true gift of our engagement. 

Similarly, although I am trained to use the Expressive Arts to facilitate a therapeutic process, how this unfolds is uniquely dependent on the client and what their life story is calling for at that moment. In other words, rather than enforcing a particular approach on my clients, I use a person-centered approach, allowing the client to guide me, to be the expert of their own life story, to inform what approaches I suggest or recommend in the here-and-now.

“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning”
- Victor. E. Frankl, Founder of Logotherapy

If someone is willing and open to do the work, whatever the work of discovery or meaning-making, may be for them in that moment in their life, then almost certainly I am able to work with them. 

However, the following areas are not my current areas of expertise in my private practice:

• Extreme PTSD
• Psychosis
• Diagnosed personality disorder
• Addiction counselling
• Marriage counselling
• Autism

If you do not fit into the above, I would recommend contacting me for a free consultation because ultimately our ability to work together depends on if we are able to find rapport and an ability to relate to each other from the onset.

The initial sessions are about understanding your story. Using a variety of techniques we:

• Begin to understand some of your backstory
• What has led you here and why NOW
• What are the important themes/areas of life/people for you right now
• What vision are you trying to reach
• What may be getting in the way of you reaching it

Usually the outline of the above takes up to three sessions and thereafter we can begin to plot the direction going forward, delve deeper, and focus on important areas of what arises.

I work Monday to Friday at flexible hours because I work with two time zones (UTC and PST), so it is best to contact me to find a convenient time

No

No, but I will be able to refer you to a local psychiatrist if it is relevant

The word homework has terrible connotations for most of us. Instead, I’d like to think about it as making suggestions for ways that you, in your time between our meetings, can begin to:

• Deepen your awareness of yourself and your environment
• Notice patterns
• Unblock old habits through the discovery of new options
• Enhance your creativity on a daily basis
• Find meaning and joy
  Examples of tasks may include:

• Writing exercises or journaling
• Risks to take/ new experiences to try
• Meditations
• Reading of particular material/ stories/ poetry
• Creative tasks such as making art, mending clothing, writing a song, playing a game

Or sometime it is as simple as

• Talking to a stranger