HCPSA Registered Psychologist | Psychotherapist

The demands of everyday life can be difficult to deal with for all of us at times, possibly leaving us feeling anxious, low and unable to cope as well as we would like. While we may be more familiar with asking for help from others in dealing with various things in our lives, this may feel more difficult or uncomfortable when it involves asking for help with our mental health. Talking about your mental health with someone who is comfortable and familiar with such issues, who can listen without judgement and who genuinely would like to explore helpful ways forward with you, may be a helpful first step.

I am a registered psychologist in Durban (Glenwood), working from a home-based consulting office, offering ADULTS (18 years or older) client-centered and client-tailored INDIVIDUAL psychotherapy (counselling), together with psychological screening, assessments and psycho-education. I have been in private practice since 1993, with additional experience as a lecturer, student counsellor, police psychologist, trainer and psychosocial training and resources development consultant.

As a psychologist registered with the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA), I can offer you a safe confidential professional space to explore your concerns with a view to collaboratively working with you to help facilitate meaningful change using a combination of psychotherapeutic techniques. I have experience in working with a range of clients with various concerns, belief systems, spiritual orientations, lifestyles, cultures and the like. Clients can be self-referred or referred by another health worker (e.g., general practitioner, psychiatrist, social worker, employer, pastor).

The focus of therapy is to develop and maintain a good working relationship in order to collaboratively facilitate meaningful change. As an integrative psychotherapist,, I would most likely use one or more types of psychological techniques [e.g., Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Person-Centered Therapy (PCT), Solution Focused Therapy (SFT), Behavioural Activation, amongst others].

The psychological techniques used are guided by clients' preferences as well as commonly accepted 'treatment guidelines' (best practice) for the difficulties being experienced by the client, and the kinds of changes the client would like to make. These guidelines are informed by research which attempts to determine which psychotherapy techniques tend to be more effective with particular problems (e.g., anxiety, depression).

First meeting: The first appointments is a good opportunity for you to ask any questions you may have about psychotherapy (counselling) in general. It is also a good time for you to gauge whether there is sufficient potential to develop a good working relationship with me - your therapist.

Your first appointment with me will be longer than the standard 60-minute therapy consultations most people are used to. All first appointments are 90-minutes long and charged as such. During this time, we will discuss the difficulties you are facing and what you are hoping to gain from psychotherapy. An important goal of the first consultation is to decide whether the services I offer are well suited to assisting you with your unique concerns and the changes that you would like to make. On those rare occasions where it is agreed that the services I offer are not a good match, I will make suggestions regarding what service/s may be better suited to your needs and, where possible, provide contact details to facilitate referral.

Weekly sessions are typically required at first for psychotherapy to have the best chance of success. When you have made sufficient progress in therapy and feel that you are managing to cope better, sessions can be spaced further apart to fortnightly or monthly. Given the current Covid-19 pandemic face-to-face appointments are temporarily suspended and online appointments are available to most clients.

Follow-up appointments: If we decide that my services (and experience) are well suited to your needs, and that you feel comfortable working with me, then we will schedule additional appointments. All future appointments (sessions) will typically be 60-minutes long, but I am quite flexible and offer 90-minute and 120-minute consultations on request too. For example, some clients find it easier to have a longer session every second week rather than a weekly 60-minute session. Clients who live far away tend to prefer longer consultations less frequently too.