Join our next Your Parenting ACT and ACT for Everybody courses
– starting Tuesday the 8th of August, 2023
When we meet, I will take the time to listen properly to what’s happening to you. We will work out what is troubling you, what would help, and what we can do together. I support people at difficult times, by being alongside you, offering strategies and ideas, and by helping you understand what’s happening to you.
I work with adults, teenagers and children – as individuals, families and in groups. My specialist areas are parenting, trauma and abuse, teenagers, children, identity, depression and anxiety. Often the most effective therapy for teenagers and children is to work with their parents. I may either help you to assist your children, or help you address difficulties which are getting in the way of your parenting.
My primary approaches are Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). ACT helps you create a rich, full and meaningful life while accepting the pain that inevitably goes with it. CFT is especially useful for high levels of shame and self-criticism. EMDR was specifically developed to treat the effects of traumatic experiences.
I’ve worked as a clinical psychologist since 1999, after training at Otago and Victoria Universities. Mostly I have been based in child and adolescent mental health services and private practice, but I have also provided supervision to other clinicians and taught in the Victoria University clinical psychology programme. I grew up in Dunedin but have lived in Wellington for 30 years. I’m a parent of two children.