Background
​
This is a professional statement and summary of who I am as a Clinical psychologist, my experience, qualifications and processes through which I work. Thank you for taking the time to read and engage with this narrative as you explore psychotherapy for yourself or a family member.
While beginning my working life as a computer programmer, I knowingly sought meaning in all my interactions and completed my Honours in Applied psychology in 1993 at the University of the Witwatersrand. Working as a psychometrist on the Tara Children’s Psychiatric ward inspired me to complete my Masters in Clinical psychology in 2001 at RAU (Cum Laude). My internship was divided between working with adult psychiatric patients and children with learning barriers and clinical presentations. Throughout these years of training and studying, I worked as a lay counselor at POWA (People Opposing Women Abuse) and the WITs Trauma Clinic and with a male prison population. My engagement with clients throughout my training deepened my empathy and equipped me with skills across a diverse range of human experience, insight and growth. I have always felt it a privilege to have people share their challenges and hardships while discovering their worth and building their resilience.
I have worked in the fields of assessment, social services, private practice and for thirteen years, in a school. Each of these settings have allowed me to explore and engage meaningfully with a spectrum of difficulties and mental health as well as the mundane housekeeping of our lives. Therapy can be called for in times of crisis but also to enhance one’s journey of self discovery and be an awakening experience. As the Head of Academic Support and Counseling at United Herzlia schools, I engaged and supported students and their families, wanting them to feel safe and cared for even if there may have been hard things to hear. I believe in fairness and justice and always call out lapses but carefully and believing in and expecting the best of people. Developing integrity, honesty and humor undermine the hostility and unkindness that can exist in our world and for young people and young adults especially.
Therapeutic Style
My approach as a therapist is one of therapeutic pluralism and I draw from several techniques and styles, depending on the needs of each case. While I have developed a broad range of counseling and intervention skills, for the most part, I work from an interpersonal and existential frame of reference. Theoretically, I am informed by dynamic therapy which technically posits that conflicting forces in human beings exist at varying levels of awareness and some are entirely unconscious. In practice, therapy is exploring process and meaning beyond the content presented. Therapy is relationship driven and hence, my style is ultimately idiosyncratic and represents my attempt to reach inside and co-create a space which allows my clients to achieve symptom removal, alleviation of pain, personal growth while experiencing containment and warmth. My work has involved collaboration with allied professionals and disciplines. Counselling and psychotherapy is a creative response to experiences that impact lives and personalities and I create a receptive space which gives a person a chance to signal what is wrong. The emotional atmosphere I offer supports growth through opportunity to grapple with suffering and confront where necessary. I highly value ethical standards and hence, the process I offer is safe and has appropriate boundaries. More recently I have become interested in incorporating new developments from neuroscience into my therapeutic practice. In essence, one creates a new therapy for each client one sees but ultimately I believe and have faith in the individual’s ability for recovery.
